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Jk. NOVEL 



0 II A R L E S 


DICKENS 


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OPENING WITH A PERFECT AND LIFE-LIKE PORTRAIT OF 

SIR WALTER SCOTT 


JULY, 1054. 


THE ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE OP ART, 


Having already successfully issued three volumes of this Standard Pictorial Periodical, and established 
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1854. 




HARD TIMES. 

BY CHARLES DICKENS, ESQ. 


CHAPTER I. 

“ Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these 
boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts 
alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, 
and root out everything else. You can only 
form the minds of reasoning animals upon 
Facts 5 nothing else will ever be of any ser- 
vice to them. This is the principle on which 
I bring up my own children, and this is the 
principle on which I bring up these children. 
Stick to Facts, sir !” 

The scene was a plain, bare, monotonous 
vault of a school-room, and the speaker’s 
square forefinger emphasised his observations 
by underscoring every sentence with a line 
on the schoolmaster’s sleeve. The emphasis 
was helped by the speaker’s square wall of a 
forehead, which had his eyebrows for its base, 
while his eyes found commodious cellarage in 
two dark caves, overshadowed by the wall. 
The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s 
mouth, which was wide, thin, and hard set. 
The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s 
voice, which was inflexible, dry, and dictato- 
rial. The emphasis was helped by the speak- 
er’s hair, which bristled on the skirts of his 
bald head, a plantation of firs to keep the 
wind from its shining surface, all covered 
with knobs, like the crust of a plum pie, as if 
the head had scarcely warehouse-room for the 
hard facts stored inside. The speaker’s ob- 
stinate carriage, square coat, square legs, 
square shoulders, — nay, his very neckcloth, 
trained to take him by the throat with an un- 
accommodating grasp, like a stubborn fact, 
as it was, — all helped the emphasis. 

“ In this life, we want nothing but Facts, 
sir ; nothing but Facts !” 

The speaker, and the schoolmaster, and the 
third grown person present, all backed a little, 
and swept with their eyes the inclined plane 
of little vessels then and there arranged in 
order, ready to have imperial gallons of facts 
oured into them until they were full to the 
rim. 

CHAPTER II. 

Thomas Gradgrind, Sir. A man of reali- 
ties. A man of facts and calculations. A 
man who proceeds upon the principle that 
two and two are four, and nothing over, and 
who is not to be talked into allowing for any- 
thing over. Thomas Gradgrind, sir— peremp- 


torily Thomas — Thomas Gradgrind. With a 
rule and a pair of scales, and the multipli- 
cation table always in his pocket, sir. ready 
to weigh and measure any parcel of human 
nature, and tell you exactly what it comes to. 
It is a mere question of figures, a case of 
simple arithmetic. You might hope to get 
some other nonsensical belief into the head of 
George Gradgrind, or Augustus Gradgrind, 
or John Gradgrind, or Joseph Gradgrind (all 
supposititious, non-existent persons), but into 
the head of Thomas Gradgrind — no, sir. 

In such terms Mr. Gradgrind always men- 
tally introduced himself, whether to his 
private circle of acquaintance, or to the public 
in general. In such terms, no doubt, substi- 
tuting the words “boys and girls,” for “ sir,” 
Thomas Gradgrind now presented Thomas 
Gradgrind to the little pitchers before him, 
who were to be filled so full of facts. 

Indeed, as he eagerly sparkled at them 
from the cellarage before mentioned, he seemed 
a kind of cannon loaded to the muzzle with 
facts, and prepared to blow them clean out of 
the regions of childhood at one discharge. He 
seemed a galvanising apparatus, too, charged 
with a grim mechanical substitute for the 
tender young imaginations that were to be 
stormed away. 

“ Girl number twenty,” said Mr. Gradgrind, 
squarely pointing with his square forefinger, 
“I don’t know that girl. Who is that girl?” 

“ Sissy Jupe, sir,” explained number twenty, 
blushing, standing up, and curtseying. 

“ Sissy is not a name,” said Mr. Gradgrind. 
“Don’t call yourself Sissy. Call yourself 
Cecilia.” 

“It’s father as calls me Sissy, sir,” re- 
turned the young girl in a trembling voice, 
and with another curtsey. 

“ Then he has no business to do it,” said 
Mr. Gradgrind. “ Tell him he mustn’t, 
Cecilia Jupe. Let me see. What is your 
father ?” 

“He belongs to the horse-riding, if you 
please, sir. 

Mr. Gradgrind frowned, and waved off the 
objectionable calling with his hand. 

“ We don’t want to know anything about 
that, here. You mustn’t tell us about that, 
here. Your father breaks horses, don’t he ?” 

“ If you please sir, when they can get any 
to break, they do break horses in the ring, 
sir.” 


2 


HARD TIMES. 


“You mustn’t tell us about the ring here. 
Very well, then. Describe your father as a 
horsebreaker. He doctors sick horses, I dare 
say ?” 

“ Oh yes, sir.” 

“Very well, then. He is a veterinary sur- 
geon, a farrier and • horsebreaker. Give me 
your definition of a horse.” 

(Sissy Jupe thrown into ihe greatest alarm 
by this demand.) 

“ Girl number twenty unable to define a 
horse !” said Mr. Gradgrind, for the general 
behoof of all the little pitchers. “ Girl number 
twenty possessed of no facts, in reference to 
one of the commonest of animals! Some 
boy’s definition of a horse. Bitzer, yours.” 

The square finger, moving here and there, 
lighted, suddenly on Bitzer, perhaps because 
he chanced to sit in the same ray of sunlight 
which, darting in at one of the bare windows 
of the intensely whitewashed room, irradiated 
Sissy. For, the boys and girls sat on the face 
of the inclined plane in two compact bodies, 
divided up the centre by a narrow interval ; 
and Sissy, being at the corner of a row on the 
sunny side, came in for the beginning of a 
sunbeam, of which Bitzer, being at the 
corner of a row on the other side, a few rows 
in advance, caught the end. But, whereas the 
girl was so dark-eyed and dark-haired, that 
she seemed to receive a deeper and more 
lustrous colour from the sun when it shone 
upon her, the boy w T as so light-eyed and light- 
haired that the self-same rays appeared to 
draw out of him what little colour he ever 
possessed. His cold eyes would hardly have 
been eyes, but for the short ends of lashes 
which, by bringing them into immediate con- 
trast with something paler than themselves, 
expressed their form. His short-cropped 
hair might have been a mere continuation of 
the sandy freckles on his forehead and face. 
His skin was so un wholesomely deficient in 
the natural tinge, that he looked as though, 
if he were cut, he would bleed white. 

“ Bitzer,” said Thomas Gradgrind. “ Your 
definition of a horse.” 

“Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, 
namely twenty-four grinders, four eye-teeth, 
and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in the 
spring 5 in marshy countries, sheds hoofs, too. 
Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with 
iron. Age known by marks in mouth.” Thus 
(and much more) Bitzer. 

“ Now girl number twenty,” said Mr. Grad- 
grind. “ You know what a horse is.” 

She curtseyed again, and would have blushed 
deeper, if she could have blushed deeper than 
she had blushed all this time. Bitzer, after 
rapidly blinking at Thomas Gradgrind with 
both eyes at once, and so catching the light 
upon his quivering ends of lashes that they 
looked like the antennae of busy insects, put 
his knuckles to his freckled forehead, and sat 
down again. 

The third gentleman now stepped forth. 
A mighty man at cutting and drying, he was ; 


a government officer ; in his way (and in most 
other people’s too), a professed pugilist; always 
in training, always with a system to force 
down the general throat like a bolus, always 
to be heard of at the bar of his little Public- 
office, ready to fight all England. To con- 
tinue in fistic phraseology, he had a genius 
for tuning up to the scratch, wherever and 
whatever it was, and proving himself an ugly 
customer. He would go in and damage any 
subject whatever with his right, follow up 
with his left, stop, exchange, counter, bore 
hie opponent (he always fought all Eng- 
land) to the ropes, and fall upon him neatly, 
He was certain to knock the wind out of 
common-sense, and render that unlucky ad- 
versary deaf to the call of time. And he 
had it in charge from high authority to bring 
about the great public-office Millennium, 
when Commissioners should reign upon earth. 

“Very well,” said this gentleman, briskly 
smiling, and folding his arms. “ That’s a 
horse. Now, let me ask you, girls and boys, 
Would you paper a room with representations 
of horses?” 

After a pause, one half of the children cried 
in chorus, “Yes, sir !” Upon which the 
other half, seeing in the gentleman’s face 
that Yes was wrong, cried out in chorus, 
“ No, sir ! ” — as the custom is in these ex- 
aminations. 

“ Of course, No. Why wouldn’t you ?” 

A pause. One corpulent slow boy, with a 
wheezy manner of breathing, ventured the 
answer, Because he wouldn’t paper a room at 
all, but would paint it. 

“ You must paper it,” said the gentleman, 
rather warmly. 

“ You must paper it,” said Thomas Grad- 
grind, “ whether you like it or not. Don’t 
tell us you wouldn’t paper it. What do you 
mean boy ?” 

“ I’ll explain to you, then,” said the gen- 
tleman, after another and a dismal pause, 
“ why you wouldn’t paper a room with 
representations of horses. Do you ever see 
horses walking up and down the sides of 
rooms in reality — in fact ? Do you ?” 

“ Yes, sir !” from one half. “ No sir !” 
from the other. 

“ Of course no,” said the gentleman with 
an indignant look at the wrong half. “ Why, 
then, you are not to see anywhere, what you 
don’t see in fact ; you are not to have anywhere, 
what you don’t have in fact, What is called 
Taste, is only another name for Fact.” 

Thomas Gradgrind nodded his approbation. 

“ This is a new principle, a discovery, a 
great discovery,” said the gentleman. “ Now, 
I’ll try you again. Suppose you were going 
to carpet a room. Would you use a carpet 
having a representation of flowers upon it ?” 

There being a general conviction by this 
time that “No, sir,” was always the right 
answer to this gentleman, the chorus of No 
was very strong. Only a few feeble stragglers 
said Yes ; among them Sissy Jupe. 


HARD TIMES. 


3 


“ Girl number twenty,” said the gentleman, 
smiling in the calm strength of knowledge. 

Sissy blushed, and stood up. 

“ So you would carpet your room — or your 
husband’s room if you were a grown woman, 
and had a husband — with representations of 
flowers, would you ? ” said the gentleman. 
“ Why would you ? ” 

“If you please, sir, I am very fond of 
flowers,” returned the girl. 

“ And is that why you would put tables 
and chairs upon them, and have people walk- 
ing over them with heavy boots ? ” 

“ It wouldn’t hurt them, sir. They wouldn’t 
orush and wither if you please, sir. They 
would be the pictures of what was very pretty 
and pleasant, and I would fancy ” 

“ Ay, ay, ay ! But you musn’t fancy,” 
cried the gentleman, quite elated by coming 
so happily to his point. “ That’s it! You 
are never to fancy.” 

“ You are not, Mary Jupe,” Thomas Grad- 
grind solemnly repeated, “ to do anything of 
that kind.” 

“ Fact, fact, fact !” said the gentleman. 
And “ Fact, fact, fact ! ” repeated Thomas 
Gradgrind. 

“ You are to be in all things regulated and 
governed,” said the gentleman, “ by fact. 
We hope to have, before long, a board of fact, 
composed of commissioners of fact, who will 
force the people to be a people of fact, and 
of nothing but fact. You must discard the 
word Fancy altogether. You have nothing to 
do with it. You are not to have, in any object 
of use or ornament, what would be a contra- 
diction in fact. You don’t walk upon flowers 
in fact ; you cannot be allowed to walk upon 
flowers in carpets. You dont find that 
foreign birds and butterflies come and perch 
upon your crockery ; you cannot be permitted 
to paint foreign birds and butterflies upon 
your crockery. You never meet with quad- 
rupeds going up and down walls ; you must 
not have quadrupeds represented upon walls. 
You must use,” said the gentleman, “ for 
all these purposes, combinations and modi- 
fications (in primary colours) of mathematical 
figures which are susceptible of proof and de- 
monstration. This is the new discovery. 
This is fact. This is taste.” 

The girl curtseyed, and sat down. She was 
very young, and she loked as if she were 
frightened by the matter of fact prospect the 
world afforded.” 

“Now, if Mr. M'Choakumchild,” said the 
gentleman, “will proceed to give his first 
lesson here, Mr. Gradgind, I shall be happy, 
at your request, to observe his mode of pro- 
cedure.” 

Mr. Gradgrind was much obliged. “Mr. 
M'Choakumehild, we only wait for you.” 

“ So, Mr. M'Choakumchild began in his best 
manner. He and some one hundred and forty 
other schoolmasters, had been lately turned 
at the same time, in the same factory, on the 
same principles, like so many pianoforte legs. 


He had been put through an immense variety 
of paces, and had answered volumes of head- 
breaking questions. Orthography, etymology, 
syntax, and prosody, biography, astronomy, 
geography, and general cosmography, the 
sciences of. compound proportion, algebra, 
land surveying and levelling, vocal music, and 
drawing from models, were all at the ends 
ol his ten chilled fingers. He had worked his 
stoney way into Her Majesty’s most Honor- 
able Privy Council’s Schedule B, and had 
taken the bloom off the higher branches of 
mathematics and physical science, French, 
German, Latin, and Greek. He knew all 
about all the Water Sheds of all the world 
(whatever they are), and all the histories of 
all the peoples, and all the names of all the 
rivers and mountains, and all the productions, 
manners, and customs of all the countries, and 
all their boundaries and bearings on the two 
and thirty points of the compass. Ah, rather 
overdone, M'Choakumchild. If he had only 
learnt a little less, how infinitely better he 
might have taught much more ! 

He went to work in this preparatory lesson, 
not unlike Morgiana in the Forty Thieves : 
looking into all the vessels ranged before him, 
one after another, to see what they contained. 

good M'Choakumchild. When from thy 
boiling store, thou shall fill each jar brim 
full by and by, dost thou think that thou wilt 
always kill outright the robber Fancy lurking 
within — or sometimes only maim him and 
distort him ! 

chapter hi. 

Mr. Gradgrind walked homeward from 
the school, in a state of considerable satis- 
faction. It was his school, and he intended it 
to be a model. He intended every child in it 
to be a model — just as the young Gradgrinds 
were all models. 

There were five young Gradgrinds, and they 
were models every one. They had been lec- 
tured at, from their tenderest years ; coursed, 
like little hares. Almost as soon as they could 
run alone, they had been made to run to the 
lecture-room. The first object with which 
they had an association, or of which they had 
a remembrance, was a large black board with 
a dry Ogre chalking ghastly white figures 
on it. 

Not that they knew, by name or nature, 
anything about an Ogre. Fact forbid! I 
only use the word to express a monster in a 
lecturing castle, with Heaven knows how 
many heads manipulated into one, taking 
childhood captive, and dragging it into gloomy 
statistical dens by the hair. 

No little Gradgrind had ever seen a face 
in the moon ; it was up in the moon before 
it could speak distinctly. No little Grad- 
grind had ever learnt the silly jingle, Twinkle 
twinkle, little star ; how I wonder what you 
are ; it had never known wonder on the 
subject, having at five years old dissected the 
Great Bear like a Professor Owen, and driver 


4 


HARD TIMES. 


Charles’s Wain like a locomotive engine- 
driver. No little Gradgrind had ever associ- 
ated a cow in a field with that famous cow 
with the crumpled horn who tossed the dog 
who worried the cat who killed the rat who 
ate the malt, or with that yet more famous 
cow who swallowed Tom Thumb ; it had 
never heard of these celebrities, and had only 
been introduced to a cow as a gramnivorous 
ruminating quadruped with several stomachs. 

To his matter of fact home, which was 
called Stone Lodge, Mr. Gradgrind directed 
his steps. He had virtually retired from the 
wholesale hardware trade before he built 
Stone Lodge, and was now looking about for 
a suitable opportunity of making an arithmet- 
ical figure in Parliament. Stone Lodge was 
situated on a moor within a mile or two of a 
great town — called Coketown in the present 
faithful guide-book. 

A very regular feature on the face of the 
country, Stone Lodge was. Not the least dis- 
guise toned down or shaded off that un- 
compromising fact in the landscape. A great 
square house, with a heavy portico darkening 
the principal windows, as its master’s heavy 
brows overshadowed his eyes. A calculated, 
east up, balanced and proved house. Six 
windows on this side of the door, six on that 
side ; a total of twelve in this wing, a total of 
twelve in the other wing ; four and twenty 
carried over to the back. A lawn and garden 
and an infant avenue, all ruled straight like 
a botanical account-book Gas and ventila- 
tion, drainage and water-service, all of the 
primest quality. Iron clamps and girders, 
fireproof from top to bottom ; mechanical lifts 
for the housemaids, with all their brushes and 
brooms ; everything that heart could desire. 

Everything ? Well I suppose so. The 
little Grad grinds had cabinets in various 
departments of science too. They had a 
little conchological cabinet, and a little me- 
tallurgical cabinet, and a little mineralogical 
cabinet ; and the specimens were all arranged 
and labelled, and the bits of stone and ore 
looked as though they might have been broken 
from their parent substances by those tremen- 
dously hard instruments, their own names ; 
and, to paraphrase the idle legend of Peter 
Piper, who had never found his way into their 
nursery. If the little greedy Gradgrinds 
grasped at more than this, what was it for good 
gracious goodness sake, that the greedy little 
Gradgrinds grasped at ! 

Their father walked on in a hopeful and 
satisfied frame of mind. He was an affectionate 
father, after his manner ; but he would proba- 
bly have described himself (if he had been 
put, like Sissy Jupe, upon a definition) as “ an 
eminently practical” father. He had a par- 
ticular pride in the phrase eminently practi- 
cal, which was considered to have a special 
application to him. Whatsoever the public 
meeting held in Coketown, and whatsoever 
the subject of such meeting, some Coketowner 
was sure to seize the occasion of alluding 


to his eminently practical friend Gradgrind. 
This always pleased the eminently practical 
friend. He knew it to be his due, but his due 
was acceptable. 

He had reached the neutral ground upon 
the outskirts of the town, which was neither 
town nor country, and yet was either spoiled, 
when his ears were invaded by the sound of 
music. The clashing and banging band at- 
tached to the horse-riding establishment 
which had there set up its rest in a wooden 
pavilion, was in full bray. A flag, floating 
from the summit of the temple, proclaimed 
to mankind that it was “ Sleary’s Horse- 
riding” which claimed their suffrages. Sleary 
himself, a stout modern statue with, a 
money-box at its elbow, in an ecclesias- 
tical niche of early Gothic architecture, 
took the money. Miss Josephine Sleary, as 
some very long and very narrow strips of 
printed bill announced, was then inaugurating 
the entertainments with her graceful eques- 
trian Tyrolean flower-act. Among the other 
pleasing but always strictly moral wonders 
which must be seen to be believed, Signor 
Jupe was that afternoon to “ elucidate the 
diverting accomplishments of his highly train- 
ed performing dog Merry legs.” He was also 
to exhibit “his astounding feat of throwing 
seventy-five hundred weight in rapid suc- 
cession backhanded over his head thus 
forming a fountain of solid Ron in mid air, a 
feat never before attempted in this or any 
other country and which having elicted such 
rapturous plaudits from enthusiastic throngs 
it cannot be withdrawn.” The same Signor 
J upe w'as to “ enliven the varied performances 
at frequent intervals with his chaste Shakspe- 
rean quips and retorts.” Lastly, he was to wind 
them up by appearing in his favorite character 
of Mr. William Button, of Tooley Street, in 
“ the highly novel and laughable hippo- 
comedietta of The Tailor’s Journey to Brent- 
ford.” 

Thomas Gradgrind took no heed of these 
trivialities of course, but passed on as a 
practical man ought to pass on, either brush- 
ing the noisy insects from his thoughts, or 
consigning them to the House of Correction. 
But, the turning of the road took him by the 
back of the booth, and at the back of the 
booth a number of children were congregated 
in a number of stealthy attitudes, striving to 
peep in at the hidden glories of the place. 

This brought him to a stop. “ Now, to 
think of these vagabonds,” said he, “ attracting 
the young rabble from a model school !” 

A space of stunted grass and dry rubbish 
being between him and the young rabble, he 
took his eyeglass out of his waiscoat to look 
for any child he knew by name, and might 
order off. Phenomenon almost incredible 
though distinctly seen, what did he then be- 
hold but his own metallurgical Louise peep- 
ing with all her might through a hole in a 
deal board, and his own mathematical Thomas 
abasing himself on the ground to catch but a 


HARD TIMES. 


5 


hoof of the graceful equestrian Tyrolean flower 
act ! 

Dumb with amazement, Mr. Gradgrind 
crossed to the spot where his family was thus 
disgraced, laid his hand upon each erring 
child, and said : 

“ Louisa ! ! Thomas ! ! ” 

Both rose, red and disconcerted. But, 
Louisa looked at her father with more boldness 
than Thomas did. Indeed, Thomas did not 
look at him, but gave himself up to be taken 
home like a machine. 

“ In the name of wonder, idleness, and 
folly ! ” said Mr. Gradgrind, leading each 
away by a hand ; “ what do you do here ? ” 

“ Wanted to see what it was like,” return- 
ed Louisa shortly. 

“ What it was like ?” 

“Yes, father.” 

There was an air of jaded sullenness in them 
both, and particularly in the girl : yet, strug- 
gling through the dissatisfaction of her face, 
there was a light with nothing to rest upon, 
a fire with nothing to burn, a starved imagi- 
nation keeping life in itself somehow, -which 
brightened its expression. Not with the 
brightness natural to cheerful youth, but with 
uncertain, eager, doubtful flashes, which had 
something painful in them, analogous to the 
changes of a blind face groping its way. 

She was a child now, of fifteen or sixteen ; 
but at no distant day would seem to become 
a woman all at once. Her father thought so 
as he looked at her. She was pretty. Would 
have been self-willed (he thought in his 
eminently practical way) but for her bring- 
ing-up. 

“ Thoma3, though I have the fact before 
me, I find it difficult to believe that you, with 
your education and resources, should have 
brought your sister to a scene like this.” 

“ I brought him, father,” said Louisa, 
quickly. “ I asked him to come.” 

“Iam sorry to hear it. I am very sorry 
indeed to hear it. It makes Thomas no better, 
and it makes you worse, Louisa.” 

She looked at her father again, but no tear 
fell down her cheek. 

“You! Thomas and you, to whom the circle 
of the sciences is open, Thomas and you who 
may be said to be replete with facts, Thomas 
and you who have been trained to mathema- 
tical exactness, Thomas and you here !” cried 
Mr. Gradgrind. “ In this degraded position ! 

I am amazed.” 

“ I was tired, father. I have been tired a 
long time,” said Louisa. 

“ Tired ? Of what ? ” asked the astonished 
father. 

“I don’t know of what — of everything I 
think.” 

“ Say not another word,” returned Mr. 
Gradgrind. “ You are childish. I will hear 
no more.” He did not speak again until they 
had walked some half-a-mile in silence, when 
he gravely broke out with : “ What would 
your best friends say, Louisa? Do you 


attach no value to their good opinion? What 
would Mr. Bounderby say ?” 

At the mention of this name, his daughter 
stole a look at him, remarkable for its intense 
and searching character. He saw nothing of 
it, for before he looked at her she had again 
cast down her eyes ! 

“ What,” he repeated presently, “ would 
Mr. Bounderby say !” All the way to Stone 
Lodge, as with grave indignation he led fho 
two delinquents home, he repeated at inter- 
vals, “ What would Mr. Bounderby say ?” — 
as if Mr. Bounderby had been Mr3. Grundy. 

CHAPTER IV. 

Not being Mrs. Grundy, who was Mr. 
Bounderby ? 

Why, Mr. Bounderby was as near being 
Mr. Grandgrind’s bosom friend, as a man per- 
fectly devoid of sentiment can approach that 
spiritual relationship towards another man 
perfectly devoid of sentiment. So near was 
Mr. Bounderby — or, if the reader should pre- 
fer it, so far off. 

He was a rich man : banker, merchant, 
manufacturer, and what not. A big, loud 
man, with a stare and a metallic laugh. A 
man made out of a coarse material, which 
seemed to have been stretched to make so 
much of him. A man with a great puffed 
head and forehead, swelled veins in his 
temples, and such a strained skin to his face 
that it seemed to hold his eyes open and lift 
his eyebrows up. A man with a pervading 
appearance on him -of being inflated like a 
balloon, and ready to start. A man who 
could never sufficiently vaunt himself a self- 
made man. A man who was always pro- 
claiming, through that brassy speaking-trum- 
pet of a voice of his, his old ignorance and his 
old poverty. A man who was the Bully of 
humility. 

A year or two younger than his eminently 
practical friend, Mr Bounderby looked older ; 
his seven or eight and forty might have had 
the seven or eight added to it again, without 
surprising anybody. He had not much hair. 
One might have fancied he had talked it off ; 
and that what was left, all standing up in dis- 
order, was in that condition from being con- 
stantly blown about by his windy boastfulness. * 

In the formal drawing-room of Stone 
Lodge, standing on the hearth-rug, warming 
himself before the fire, Mr. Bounderby de- 
livered some observations to Airs. Gradgrind 
on the circumstance of its being his birthday. 
He stood before the fire, partly because it 
was a cool spring afternoon, thougli the sun 
shone ; partly because the shade of Stone 
Lodge was always haunted by the ghost of 
damp mortar ; partly because he thus took up 
a commanding position, from which to subdue 
Mrs. Gradgrind. 

“ I hadn’t a shoe to my foot. As to a 
stocking, I didn’t know such a thing by 
name. I passed the day in a ditch, and the 
night in a pigsty. That’s the way I spent 


6 


HARD TIMES. 


jny tenth birthday. Not that a ditch was 
uew to me, for I was born in a ditch.” 

Mrs. Gradgrind, a little, thin, white, pink- 
eyed bundle of shawls, of surpassing feeble- 
ness, mental and bodily ; who was always 
taking physic without any effect, and who, 
whenever she showed a symptom of coming 
to life, was invariably stunned by some 
weighty piece of fact tumbling on her ; Mrs. 
Gradgrind hoped it was a dry ditch ? 

“ No ! As wet as a sop. A foot of water 
in it,” said Mr. Bounderby. 

“ Enough to give a baby cold,” Mrs. Grad- 
grind considered. 

“ Cold ? I was born with inflammation of 
the lungs, and of everything else, I believe, 
that was capable of inflammation,” returned 
Mr. Bounderby. “ For years, ma’am, I was 
jne of the most miserable little wretches ever 
seen. I was so sickly, that I was always 
moaning and groaning. I was so ragged and 
dirty, that you wouldn’t have touched me 
with a pair of tongs.” 

Mrs. Gradgrind faintly looked at the tongs, 
as the most appropriate thing her imbecility 
could think of doing. 

“ How I fought through it, I don’t know,” 
said Bounderby. “ I was determined, I sup- 
pose. I have been a determined character 
in later life, and I suppose I was then. Here 
I am, Mrs. Gradgrind, anyhow, and nobody 
to thank for my being here but myself.” 

Mrs. Gradgrind meekly and weakly hoped 
that his mother — 

“ My mother? Bolted, ma’am!” said 
Bounderby. 

Mrs. Gradgrind, stunned as usual, collapsed 
ind gave it up. 

My mother left me to my grandmother,” 
said Bounderby ; “ and, according to the best 
of my remembrance, my grandmother was 
the wickedest and the worst old woman that 
ever lived. If I got a little pair of shoes by 
any chance, she would take ’em off and sell 
’em for drink. Why, I have known that 
grandmother of mine lie in her bed and drink 
her fourteen glasses of liquor before break- 
fast ! ” 

Mrs. Gradgrind, weakly smiling, and giving 
no other sign of vitality, looked (as she 
always did) like an indifferently executed 
transparency of a small female figure, without 
enough light behind it. 

“ She kept a chandler’s shop,” pursued 
Bounderby, “ and kept me in an egg-box. 
That was the cot of my infancy ; an old egg- 
box. As soon as I was big enough to run 
away, of course I ran away. Then I became 
a young vagabond; and instead of one old 
woman knocking me about and starving me, 
everybody of all ages knocked me about and 
starved me. They were right ; they had no 
business to do anything else. I was a 
nuisance, an incumbrance, and a pest. I 
fcnow that, very well.” 

His pride in having at any time of his life 
fchieved such a great social distinction as to 


be a nuisance, an incumbrance, and a pes$> 
was only to be satisfied by three sonorous 
repetitions of the boast. 

“ I was to pull through it I suppose, Mrs. 
Gradgrind. Whether I was to do it or not, 
ma’am, I did it. I pulled through it, though 
nobody threw me out a rope. Vagabond, 
errand-boy, vagabond, labourer, porter, 
clerk, chief manager, small partner, Josiah 
Bounderby of Coketown. Those are the antece- 
dents, and the culmination. Josiah Bounderby 
of Coketown learnt his letters from the outsides 
of the shops, Mrs. Gradgrind, and was first 
able to tell the time upon a dial-plate, from 
studying the steeple clock of St. Giles’s Church, 
London, under the direction of a drunken 
cripple, who was a convicted thief and an 
incorrigible vagrant. Tell Josiah Boun- 
derby of Coketown, of your district schools 
and your model schools, and your training 
schools, and your whole kettle-of-fish of 
schools ; and Josiah Bounderby, of Coketown, 
tells you plainly, all right, all correct — he 
hadn’t such advantages — but let us have 
hard-headed, solid-fisted people — the educa- 
tion that made him won’t do for everybody, 
he knows well — such and such his education 
was, however, and you may force him to 
swallow boiling fat, but you shall never force 
him to suppress the facts of his life.” 

Being heated when he arrived at this 
climax, Josiah Bounderby of Coketown 
stopped. He stopped just as his eminently 
practical friend, still accompanied by the two 
young culprits, entered the room. His emi- 
nently practical friend, on seeing him, stopped 
also, and gave Louisa a reproachful look that 
plainly said, “ Behold your Bounderby !” 

“ Well!” blustered Mr. Bounderby, ‘‘what’s 
the matter? What is young Thomas in the 
dumps about ?” 

He spoke of young Thomas, but he looked 
at Louisa. 

“ We were peeping at the circus,” muttered 
Louisa haughtily, without lifting up her eyes, 

“ and father caught us.” 

“ And Mrs. Gradgrind,” said her husband 
in a lofty manner, “I should as soon have ex- 
pected to find my children reading poetry.” 

“ Dear me,” whimpered Mrs. Gradgrind. 

“ How can you, Louisa and Thomas ? I 
wonder at you. I declare you’re enough to 
make one regret ever having had a family at 
all. I have a great mind to say I wish I 
hadn’t. Then what would you have done, I 
should like to know ?” 

Mr. Gradgrind did not seem favorably im- 
pressed by thesh cogent remarks. He 
frowned impatiently. 

. “ As if, with my head in its present throb- 
bing state, you couldn’t go and look at the 
shells and minerals and things provided for 
you, instead of circuses!” said Mrs. Grad- 
grind. “ You know, as well as I do, no young 
people have circus masters, or keep circuses 
in cabinets, or attend lectures about circuses 
What can you possibly r ,nt to know of 


HARD TIMES. 


7 


circuses then ? 1 am sure you have enough to 
do, if that’s what you want. With my head in 
its present state, I couldn’t remember the 
mere names of half the facts you have got 
to attend to.” 

“ That’s the reason ! ” pouted Louisa. 

“ Don’t tell me that’s the reason, because it 
can be nothing of the sort,” said Mrs. Grad- 
grind, “Go and be somethingological directly.” 
Mrs. Gradgrind was not a scientific character, 
and usually dismissed her children to their 
studies with this general injunction to choose 
their pursuit. 

In truth, Mrs. Gradgrind’s stock of facts in 
general was woefully defective, but Mr. Grad- 
grind in raising her to her high matrimonial 
position had been influenced by two reasons. 

Firstly, she was most satisfactory as a ques- 
tion of figures ; and, secondly, she had “ no 
nonsense ” about her. By nonsense he meant 
fancy ; and truly it is probable she was as 
free from any alloy of that nature, as any 
human being not arrived at the perfection of 
an absolute idiot, ever was. 

The simple circumstance of being left alone 
with her husband and Mr. Bounderby, was 
sufficient to stun this admirable lady again, 
without collision between herself and any 
other fact. So, she once more died away, and 
nobody minded her. 

“ Bounderby,” said Mr. Gradgrind, drawing 
a chair to the fireside, “ you are always so 
interested in my young people — particularly 
in Louisa — that I make no apology for saying 
to you, I am very much vexed by this dis- 
covery. I have systematically devoted myself 
(as you know) to the education of the reason 
of my family. The reason is (as you know) 
the only faculty to which education should be 
addressed. And yet, Bounderby, it would 
appear from this unexpected circumstance of 
to-day, though in itself a trifling one, as if 
something had crept into Thomas’s and 
Louisa’s minds which is — or rather, which is 
not — I don’t know that I can express myself 
better than by saying — which has never been 
intended to be developed, and in which their 
reason has no part.” 

“ There certainly is no reason in looking 
with interest at a parcel of vagabonds,” re- 
turned Bounderby. “ When I was a vagabond 
myself, nobody looked with any interest at me; 
I know that.” 

“ Then comes the question,” said the emi- 
nently practical father, with his eyes on the 
fire, “ in what has this vulgar curiosity its rise ?” 

“ I’ll tell you in what. In idle imagina- 
tion.” 

“I hope not,” said the eminently practical ; 
“ I confess, however, that the misgiving has 
crossed me on my way home.” 

“ In idle imagination, Gradgrind,” repeated 
Bounderby. “ A very bad thing for anybody, 
but a cursed bad thing for a girl like 
Louisa. I should ask Mrs. Gradgrind’s pardon 
for strong expressions, but that she knows 
very well I am not a refined character. Who- 


ever expects refinement in me will be disap- 
pointed. I hadn’t a refined bringing up.” 

“ Whether,” said Mr. Gladgrind, pondering 
with his hands in his pockets, and his caver- 
nous eyes on the fire, “ whether any instruc- 
tor or servant can have suggested anything? 
Whether Louisa or Thomas can have been 
reading anything ? Whether, in spite of all pre- 
cautions, any idle story book can have got into 
the house? Because, by minds that have 
been practically formed by rule and line, 
from the cradle upwards, this is so curious, 
so incomprehensible.” 

“Stop a bit! ’’cried Bounderby, who all 
this time had been standing, as before, on the 
hearth, bursting at the very furniture of 
the room with explosive humility. “You 
have one of those strollers’ children in the 
school.” 

“ Cecilia Jupe, by name,” said Mr. Grad- 
grind, with something of a stricken look at his 
friend. 

“ Now, stop a bit ! ” cried Bounderby again. 
“ IIow did she come there ? ” 

“ Why, the fact is, I saw the girl myself for 
the first time, only just now. She specially 
applied here at the house to be admitted, as 
not regularly belonging to our town, and 
— yes, you are right, Bounderby you are 
right.” 

“ Now, stop a bit ! ” cried Bounderby, once 
more. “ Louisa saw her when she came ? ” 

“ Louisa certainly did see her, for she men- 
tioned the application to me. But Louisa saw 
her, I have no doubt, in Mrs. Gradgrind’s 
presence.” 

“ Pray, Mrs. Gradgrind,” said Bounderby, 
“ what passed?” 

“ Oh, my poor health ! ” returned Mrs. 
Gradgrind. “ The girl wanted to come to 
the school, and Mr. Gradgrind wanted girls 
to come to the school, and Louisa and Thomas 
both said that the girl wanted to come, and, 
that Mr. Gradgrind wanted girls to come, 
and how was it possible to contradict them 
when such was the fact ! ” 

“ Now I tell you what, Gradgrind ! ” said 
Mr. Bounderby. “ Turn this girl to the right- 
about, and there’s an end of it.” 

“ I am much of your opinion.” 

“Do it at once,” said Bounderby, “has 
always been my motto from a child. When 
I thought I would run away from my egg- 
box and my grandmother, I did it at once. 
Do you the same. Do this at once.” 

“ Are you walking ? ” asked his friend. “ I 
have the father’s address. Perhaps you 
would not mind walking to town with me ? ” 

“ Not the least in the world,” said Mr. 
Bounderby, “ as long as you do it at once ! ” 

So, Mr. Bounderby threw on his hat — he 
always threw it on, as expressing a man who 
had been far too busily employed in making 
himself, to acquire any fashion of wearing his 
hat — and with his hands in his pockets 
sauntered out into the hall. “ I never wear 
gloves,” it was his custom to say. “ I didn’t 


8 


HARD TIMES. 


climb up the ladder in them. Shouldn’t be so 
high up if I had.” 

Being left to saunter in the hall a minute 
or two while Mr. Grad grind went up stairs 
for the address, he opened the door of the 
children’s study, and looked into that serene 
floor-clothed apartment, which, notwithstand- 
ing its book-cases and its cabinets, and its 
variety of learned and philosophical appli- 
ances, had much of the genial aspect of a 
room devoted to hair-cutting. Louisa lan- 
guidly leaned upon the window looking out, 
without looking at anything, while young 
Thomas stood sniffling revengefully at the 
fire. Adam Smith and Malthus, two younger 
Gradgriuds, were out at lecture in custody ; 
and little Jane, after manufacturing a good 
deal of moist pipe-clay on her face with 
slate-pencil and tears, had fallen asleep over 
vulgar fractions. 

“ It’s all right now, Louisa ; it’s all right, 
young Thomas,” said Mr Bounderby ; “ you 
won’t do so any more. I’ll answer for it’s 
being all over with father. Well, Louisa, 
that’s worth a kiss, isn’t it ?” 

“ You can take one, Mr. Bounderby,” re- 
turned Louisa, when she had coldly paused, 
and slowly walked across the room, and un- 
graciously raised her cheek towards him, with 
her face turned away. 

“ Always my pet ; an’t you, Louisa ?” said 
Mr. Bounderby. “ Good bye, Louisa !” 

He went his way, but she stood on the 
same spot, rubbing the cheek he had kissed, 
with her handkerchief, until it was burning 
red. She was still doing this five minutes 
afterwards. 

H What are you about, Loo ?” her brother 
sulkily remonstrated. “ You’ll rub a hole in 
your face.” 

“ You may cut the piece out with your 
penknife if you like, Tom. I wouldn’t cry !” 

chapter v. 

Coketown, to which Messrs. Bounderby and 
Gradgrind now walked, was a triumph of 
fact ; it had no greater taint of fancy in it 
than Mrs. Gradgrind herself. Let us strike 
the key-note, Coketown, before pursuing our 
tune. 

It was a town of red brick, or of brick that 
would have been red if the smoke and ashes 
had allowed it ; but, as matters stood, it was a 
town of unnatural red and black like the 
painted face of a savage. It was a town of 
machinery and tall chimneys, out of which 
interminable serpents of smoke trailed them- 
selves for ever and ever, and never got 
uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and 
a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye, 
and vast piles of building full of windows 
where there was a rattling and a trembling 
all day long, and where the piston of the 
steam-engine worked monotonously up and 
down, like the head of an elephant in a state 
of melancholy madness It contained several 
large streets all very like one another, and 


many small streets still more like one another, 
inhabited by people equally like one another, 
who all went in and out at the same hours, 
with the same sound upon the same pavements, 
to do the same work, and to whom every day 
was the same as yesterday and to-morrow, 
and every year the counterpart of the last and 
the next. 

These attributes of Coketown were in the 
main inseparable from the work by which it 
was sustained ; against them were to be set 
off, comforts of life which found their way all 
over the world, and elegances of life which 
made we will not ask how much of the fine 
lady, who could scarcely bear to hear the place 
mentioned. The rest of its features were 
voluntary, and they were these. 

You saw nothing in Coketown but what 
was severely useful. If the members of a 
religious persuasion built a chapel there — 
as the members of eighteen religious per- 
suasions had done — they made it a pious 
warehouse, of red brick, with sometimes (but 
this only in highly ornamented examples) a 
bell in a birdcage on the top of it. The 
solitary exception was the new church ; a 
stuccoed edifice with a square steeple over 
the door, terminating in four stunted 
pinnacles like florid wooden legs. All 
the public inscriptions in the town were 
painted alike, in severe characters of black 
and white. The jail might have been the 
infirmary, the infirmary might have been the 
jail, and the town hall might have been either, 
or both, or anything else, for anything that 
appeared to the contrary in the graces of 
their construction. Fact, fact, fact, every- 
where in the material aspect of the town ; 
fact, fact, fact, everywhere in the immaterial. 
The M’Choakumchild school was all fact, and 
the school of design was all fact, and the 
relations between master and man were all 
fact, and everything was fact between the 
lying-in hospi tal and the cemetery, and what 
you couldn’t state in figures, or show to be 
purchaseable in the cheapest market and 
saleable in the dearest, was not, and never 
should be, world without end, Amen. 

A town so sacred to fact, and so triumphant 
in its assertion, of course got on well ? Why 
no, not quite well. No? Dear me! 

No. Coketown did not come out of its 
own furnaces in all respects like gold that 
had stood the fire. First, the perplexing 
mystery of the place was, Who belonged to 
the eighteen denominations ? Because, who- 
ever did, the laboring people did not. It was 
very strange to walk through the streets on 
a Sunday morning, and note how few of them 
the barbarous jangling of bells that was driving 
the sick and nervous mad, called away from 
their own quarter, from their own close 
rooms, from the corners of their own streets, 
where they lounged listlessly, gazing at all the 
church and chapel going, as at a thing with 
which they had no manner of concern. Nor 
was it merely the stranger who noticed 


HARD 


this because there was a native organization 
in Coketown itself, whose members were to be 
heard of in the House of Commons every session 
indignantly petitioning for acts of parliament 
that should make these people religious by 
main force. Then came the Teetotal Society, 
who complained that these same people would 
get drunk, and showed in tabular statements 
that they did get drunk, and proved at tea 
parties that no inducement, human or Divine 
(except a medal), would induce them to forego 
their custom of getting drunk. Then, came 
the chemist and druggist, with other tabular 
statements, showing that when they didn’t 
get drunk, they took opium. Then, came the 
experienced chaplain of the jail, with more 
tabular statements, confirming all the pre- 
vious tabular statements, and showing that 
the same people would resort to low haunts, 
hidden from the public eye, where they heard 
low singing and saw low dancing, and mayhap 
joined in it ; and where A. B, aged twenty- 
four next birthday, and committed for eighteen 
months’ solitary, had himself said (not that 
he had ever shown himself particularly 
worthy of belief) his ruin began, as he 
was perfectly sure and confident that other- 
wise he would have been a tip-top moral 
specimen. Then, came Mr. Gradgrind and 
Mr. Bounderby, the two gentlemen at this 
present moment, walking through Coketown, 
and both eminently practical, who could, 
on occasion, furnish more tabular state- 
ments derived from their own personal 
‘xperience, and illustrated by cases they had 
vnown and seen, from which it clearly 
appeared — in short it was the only clear 
v .hmg in the case — that these same people 
were a bad lot altogether, gentlemen ; that, 
Jo v»k&t vou would for them they were never 
ihankmi for it, gentlemen ; that they were 
restless, gentlemen ; that they never knew 
what they wanted ; that they lived upon the 
best, and bought fresh butter, and insisted on 
Mocha coffee, and rejected all but prime parts 
of meat, and yet were eternally dissatisfied 
and unmanageable. In short it was the moral 
of the old nursery fable : 

There was an old wcjum, and what do you think? 

She lived upon nothing but victuals and drink ; 
Victuals and drink wer j the whole of her diet } 

And yet this old woman cold never be quiet. 

Is it possible, I wonder, that there was any 
analogy between the u*se of the Coketown 
population and the case ol the little Grad- 
grinds? Surely, none of us in our sober 
senses and acquainted with figures, are to be 
told at this time of day that one of the 
foremost elements in the existence of the 
Coketown working people hau been for 
scores of years, deliberately set at oaught? 
That there was any fancy in them demand- 
ing to be brought into healthy existence 
instead of struggling on in convulsions? 
That exactly in the ratio as they worked long 


TIMES. 9 


and monotonously, the craving grew within 
them for some physical relief — some relaxation, 
encouraging good humour and good spirits, 
and giving them a vent — some holiday, though 
it were but for an honest dance to a stirring 
band of music — some occasional light pie in 
which even M’Choakumchild had no finger — 
which craving must and would be satisfied 
aright, or must and would inevitably go wrong, 
until the laws of the Creation were repealed ? 

“ This man lives at Pod’s End, and I don’t 
quite know Pod’s End,” said Mr. Gradgrind. 
‘‘Which is it, Bounderby?” 

Mr. Bounderby knew it was somewhere 
down town, but knew no more respecting 
it. So they stopped for a moment, looking 
about. 

Almost as they did so, there came running 
round the corner of the street, at a quick 
pace and with a frightened look, a girl whom 
Mr. Gradgrind recognised. “Halloa!” said 
he. “ Stop ! Where are you going ? “ Stop !” 
Girl number twenty stopped then, palpitating, 
and made him a curtsey. 

“ Why are you tearing about the streets,” 
said Mr. Gradgrind, “ in this improper 
manner ?” 

“I was — I was run after, sir,” the girl 
panted, “ and I wanted to get away.” 

“Run after?” repeated Mr. Gradgrind. 
“ Who would run after you ?” 

The question was unexpectedly and sud- 
denly answered for her, by the colourless boy, 
Bitzer, who came round the corner with such 
blind speed and so little anticipating a stop- 
page on the pavement, that he brought him- 
self up against Mr. Gradgrind’s waistcoat, 
and rebounded into the road. 

“ What do you mean, boy ?” said Mr. 
Gradgrind. “ What are you doing ? How 
dare you dash against — everybody — in this 
manner ?” 

Bitzer picked up his cap, which the con- 
cussion had knocked off, and backing, and 
knuckling his forehead, pleaded that it was 
an accident. 

“ Was this boy running after you, Jupe ?” 
asked Mr. Gradgrind. 

“ Yes, sir,” said the girl reluctantly 

“No, I wasn’t sir!” cried Bitzer. “Not 
till she run away from me. But the horse- 
riders never mind what they say, sir ; they’re 
famous for it. You know the horse-riders are 
famous for never minding what they say,” 
addressing Sissy. “ It’s as well known in the 
town as— please, sir, as the multiplication ta- 
ble isn’t known to the horse-riders.” Bitzer 
tried Mr. Bounderby with this. 

“ He frightened me so,” said the girl, “ with 
his cruel faces !” 

“ Oh !” cried Bitzer. “ Oh ! An’t you one of 
the rest! An’t you a horse-rider! I never 
looked at her, sir. I asked her if she would 
know how to define a horse to-morrow, and 
offered to tell her again, and she ran away, 
and I ran after her, sir, that she might know 
how to answer when she was asked. You 


10 


HARD TIMES. 


wouldn’t have thought of saying such mis- 
chief if you hadn’t been a horse-rider !” 

“ Her calling seems to be pretty well known 
among ’em,” observed Mr. Bounderby. “ You’d 
have had the whole school* peeping in a row, 
in a week.” 

“ Truly, I think so,” returned his friend. 
“Bitzer, turn you about and take yourself 
home. Jupe, stay here a moment. Let me hear 
of your running in this manner any more, 
boy, and you will hear of me through the 
master of the school. You understand what 
I mean. Go along.” 

The boy stopped in his rapid blinking, 
knuckled his forehead again, glanced at Sissy, 
turned about, and retreated. 

“Now, girl,” said Mr. Gradgrind, “take 
this gentleman and me to your father’s ; we 
are going there. What have you got in that 
bottle you are carrying ?” 

“ Gin,” said Mr. Bounderby. 

“ Dear, no sir ! It’s the nine oils.” 

“ The what?” cried Mr. Bounderby. 

“ The nine oils, sir. To rub father with.” 
Then, said Mr. Bounderby, with a loud, short 
laugh, “ what the devil do you rub your fa- 
ther with nine oils for?” 

“ It’s what our people always use, sir, 
when they get any hurts in the ring,” replied 
the girl, looking over her shoulder, to assure 
herself that her pursuer was gone. “ They 
bruise themselves very bad sometimes.” 

“ Serve ’em right,” said Mr. Bounderby, 
“ for being idle.” She glanced up at his face, 
w'ith mingled astonishment and dread. 

“ By George I” said Mr. Bounderby, when 
I was four or five years younger than you, I 
had worse bruises upon me than ten oils, 
twenty oils, forty oils would have rubbed off. 
I didn’t get ’em by posture making, but by 
being banged about. There was no rope- 
dancing for me ; I danced on the bare ground, 
and was larruped with the rope.” 

Mr. Gradgrind, though hard enough, was 
by no means so rough a man as Mr. Boun- 
derby. His character was not unkind, all 
things considered ; it might have been a 
positively kind one if he had only made a good 
round mistake in the arithmetic that balanced 
it, some years ago. He said, in what he meant 
for a re-assuring tone, as they turned down 
a narrow road, “ And this is Pod’s End ; is 
it, Jupe ?” 

“ This is it, sir, and — if you wouldn’t mind, 
sir — this is the house.” 

She stopped, at twilight, at the door of a 
mean little public house, with dim red 
lights in it. As haggard and as shabby, as if, 
for want of custom, it had itself taken to 
drinking, and had gone the way all drunkards 
go, and was very near the end of it. 

“ It’s only crossing the bar, sir, and up the 
stairs, if you wouldn’t mind, and waiting 
there for a moment till I get a candle. If 
vou should hear a dog, sir, it’s only Merry- 
legs, and he only barks.” 

“ Merrylegs and nine oils, eh !” said Mr. 


Bounderby, entering last with his metallic 
laugh. “ Pretty well this, for a self-made 
man !” 


CHAPTER vi. 

The name of the public-house was the 
Pegasus’s Arms. The Pegasus’s legs might 
have been more to the purpose ; but, under- 
neath the winged horse upon the sign-board, 
the Pegasus’s Arms was inscribed in Roman 
letters. Beneath that inscription again, in 
a flowing scroll, the painter had touched off 
the lines : 

Good malt makes good beer, 

Walk in, and they’ll draw it here; 

Good wine makes good brandy, 

Give us a call, and you’ll find it handy. 

Framed and glazed upon the wall behind 
the dingy little bar, was another Pegasus — a 
theatrical one — with real gauze let in for his 
wings, golden stars stuck on all over him, and 
his ethereal harness made of red silk. 

As it had grown too dusky without, to see 
the sign, and as it had not grown light enough 
within to see the picture, Mr. Gradgrind and 
Mr. Bounderby received no offence from these 
idealities. They followed the girl up some 
steep corner stairs without meeting any one, 
and stopped in the dark while she went on 
for a candle. They expected every moment 
to hear Merrylegs give tongue', but the highly- 
trained performing dog had not barked when 
the girl and the candle appeared together. 

“ Father is not in our room, Sir,” she said, 
with a face of great surprise. “ If you 
wouldn’t ' mind walking in, I’ll find him 
directly.” 

They walked in ; and Sissy having set two 
chairs for them, sped away with a quick light 
step. Is was a mean, shabbily-furnished 
room, with a bed in it. The white nightcap, 
embellished with two peacock’s feathers and 
a pigtail bole upright, in which Signor Jupe 
had that very afternoon enlivened the varied 
performances with his chaste Shaksperian 
quips and retorts, hung upon a nail 5 but no 
other portion of his wardrobe, or other token 
of himself or his pursuits, was to be seen any- 
where. As to Merrylegs, that respectable 
ancestor of the highly-trained animal who 
went aboard the ark, might have been acci- 
dentally shut out of it, for any sign of a dog 
that was manifest to eye or ear in the Pegasus’s 
Arms. 

They heard the doors of rooms above, 
opening and shutting as Sissy went from one 
to another, in quest of her father; and presently 
they heard voices expressing surprise. She 
came bounding down again in a great hurry, 
opened a battered and mangey old hair-trunk, 
found it empty, and looked round with her 
hands clasped and her face full of terror. 

“ Father must have gone down to the Booth, 
Sir. I don’t know why he should go there, 
but he must be there ; I’ll bring him in a 
minute !” She was gone directly, without her 


HARD TIMES. 


11 


"bonnet ; with her long, dark, childish hair 
streaming behind her. 

“ What does she mean !” said Mr. Grad- 
grind. “ Back in a minute ? It’s more than 
a mile off.” 

Before Mr. Bounderby could reply, a young 
man appeared at the door, and introducing 
himself with the words, “By your leaves, 
gentlemen !” walked in with his hands in his 
pockets. Ilis face, close-shaven, thin, and 
sallow, was shaded by a great quantity of 
dark hair brushed into a roll all round his 
head, and parted up the centre. His legs 
were very robust, but shorter than legs of 
good proportions should have been. His 
chest and back were as much too broad, as 
his legs were too short. He was dressed in a 
Newmarket coat and tight-fitting trousers ; 
wore a shawl round his neck ; smelt of lamp- 
oil, straw, orange-peel, horses’ provender, and 
sawdust ; and looked a most remarkable sort 
of Centaur, compounded of the stable and the 
play-house. Where the one began, and the other 
ended, nobody could have told with any preci- 
sion. This gentleman was mentioned in the bills 
of the day as Mr. E. W. B. Childers, so justly 
celebrated for his daring vaulting act as the 
Wild Huntsman of the North American 
Prairies ; in which popular performance, a 
diminutive boy with au old face, who now 
accompanied him, assisted as his infant 
son ; being carried upside down over his 
father’s shoulder, by one foot, and held by 
the crown of his head, heels upwards, in 
the palm of his father’s hand, according 
to the violent paternal manner in which 
wild huntsmen may be observed to 
fondle their offspring. Made up with curls, 
wreaths, wings, white bismuth, and carmine, 
this hopeful young person soared into so 
pleasing a Cupid as to constitute the chief 
delight of the maternal part of the spectators ; 
but, in private, where his characteristics were 
a precocious cutaway coat and an extremely 
gruff voice, he became of the Turf, turfy. 

“By your leaves, gentlemen,” said Mr. 
E. W. B. Childers, glancing round the room. 
“ It was you, I believe, that were wishing to 
see Jupe?” 

“ It was ” said Mr. Gradgrind. “ His 
daughter has gone to fetch him, but I can’t 
wait ; therefore, if you. please, I will leave a 
message for him with you.” 

“You see, my friend,” Mr. Bounderby put 
in, “ we are the kind of people who know the 
value of time, and you are the kind of people 
who don’t know the value of time.” 

“ I have not,” retorted Mr. Childers, after 
surveying him from head to foot, “ the 
honor of knowing you ; — but if you mean that 
you can make more money of your time than 
I can of mine, I should judge from your 
appearance, that you are about right.” 

“ And when you have made it, you can keep 
it too, I should think,” said Cupid. 

“Kidderminster, stow that!” said Mr. 


Childers. (Master Kidderminster was Cupid’s 
mortal name). 

“ What does he come here cheeking us for, 
then?” cried Master Kidderminster, showing 
a very irrascible temperament. “ If you want 
to cheek us, pay your ochre at the doors and 
take it out.” 

“ Kidderminster,” said Mr. Childers, raising 
his voice, “stow that !— Sir,” to Mr. Gradgrind, 
“ I was addressing myself to you. You may, 
or you may not, be aware (Tor perhaps you 
have not been much in the audience), that 
Jupe has missed his tip very often, lately.” 

“ Has — what has he missed ?” asked Mr. 
Gradgrind, glancing at the potent Bounderby 
for assistance. 

“ Missed his tip.” 

“ Offered at the Garters four times last 
night, and never done ’em once,” said Master 
Kidderminster. “ Missed his tip at the banners, 
too, and was loose in his ponging.” 

“Didn’t do what he ought to do. Was 
short in his leaps, and bad in his tumbling,” 
Mr. Childers interpreted. 

“ Oh,” said Mr. Gradgrind, “ that is tip, is 
it?” 

“In a general way, that’s missing his tip,” 
Mr. E. W. B. Childers answered. 

“ Nine-oils, Merrylegs, missing tips, garters, 
banners, and Ponging, eh!” ejaculated 
Bounderby, with his laugh of laughs. “ Queer 
sort of company, too, for a man who has raised 
himself.” 

“Lower yourself, then,” retorted Cupid, 
“ Oh ! Lord ! If you’ve raised yourself so high 
as all that comes to, let yourself down a bit.” 

“ This is a very obtrusive lad !” said Mr. 
Gradgrind, turning, and knitting his brows on 
him. 

“We’d have had a young gentleman to meet 
you, if we had known you were coming,” re- 
torted Master Kidderminster, nothing abashed. 
“ It’s a pity you don’t have a bespeak, being 
so particular. You’re on the Tight-Jeff, ain’t 
you?” 

“What does this unmannerly boy mean,” 
asked Mr. Gradgrind, eyeing him in a sort 
of desperation, “ by Tight-Jelf ?” 

“There! Get out, get out!” said Mr. 
Childers, thrusting his young friend from the 
room, rather in a prairie manner. “ Tight- 
Jeff or Slack- Jeff, it don’t much signify ; it’s 
only tight-rope and slack-rope. You were 
going to give me a message for Jupe?” 

“ Yes, I was.” 

“Then,” continued Mr. Childers, quickly, 
“my opinion is, he will never receive it. Do 
you know much of him ?” 

“I never saw the man in my life.” 

“ I doubt if you ever will see him now. It’s 
pretty plain to me he is off.” 

“Do you mean that he has deserted his 
daughter ?” 

“Ay! I mean,” said Mr. Childers, with a 
nod, “ that he has cut. He was goosed last 
night, he was goosed the night before last, he 


12 


HARD TIMES. 


was goosed to-day. He has lately got in the 
way of being always goosed,, and he can’t 
stand it.” 

“Why has he been — so very much — Goosed ?” 
asked Sir. Gradgrind, forcing the word out of 
himself, with great solemnity and reluctance. 

“ His joints are turning stiff, and he is 
getting used up,” said Childers. “ That’s 
about the size of it. He has his points as a 
Cackler still, but he can’t get a living out of 
than.” 

“A Cackler ! ” Bounderby repeated. “ Here 
we go again ! ” 

“A speaker, if the gentleman likes it better,” 
said Mr. E. W. B. Childers, superciliously 
throwing his interpretation over his shoulder, 
and accompanying it with a shake of his long 
hair — which all shook at once. “ Now, it’s a 
remarkable fact, sir, that it cut that man 
deeper, to know that his daughter knew of 
his being goosed, than to go through with it.” 

“ Good ! ” interrupted Mr. Bounderby. 
“ This is good, Gradgrind ! A man so fond 
of his daughter, that he runs away from her ! 
This is devilish good ! Ha ! ha ! Now, I’ll 
tell you what, young man. I haven’t always 
occupied my present station of life. I know 
what these things are. You may be astonished 
to hear it, but my mother ran away from me.” 

E. W. B. Childers replied pointedly, that 
he was not at all astonished to hear it. 

“Very well,” said Bounderby. “I was 
born in a ditch, and my mother ran away 
from me. Do I excuse her for it ? No. Have 
I ever excused her for it? Not I. What do 
I call her for it ? I call her probably the very 
worst woman that ever lived in the world, 
except my drunken grandmother. There’s 
no family pride about me, there’s no imagina- 
tive sentimental humbug about me. I call a 
spade a spade ; and I call the mother of Josiah 
Bounderby of Coketown, without any fear or 
any favour, what I should call her if she had 
been the mother of Dick Jones of Wapping. 
So, with this man. He is a runaway rogue 
and a vagabond, that’s what he is, in English.” 

“ It’s all the same to me what he is or 
what ke is not, whether in English or 
whether in French,” retorted Mr. E. W. 
B. Childers, facing about. “I am telling 
your friend what’s the fact ; if you don’t 
like to hear it, you can avail yourself of 
the open air. You give it mouth enough, 
you do ; but give it mouth in your own 
building at least,” remonstrated E. W. B. 
with stern irony. “ Don’t give it mouth 
in this building, till you’re called upon. 
You have got some building of your own, 

I dare say, now ? ” 

“Perhaps so,” replied Mr. Bounderby, 
rattling his money and laughing. 

“ Then give it mouth in your own building, 
will you, if you please?” said Childers. 
“Because this isn’t a strong building, and 
too much of you might bring it down ! ” 

Eyeing Mr. Bounderby from head to foot 


again, he turned from him, as from a mao 
finally disposed of, to Mr. Gradgrind. 

“ Jupe sent his daughter out on an errand 
not an hour ago, and then was seen to slip 
out himself, with his hat over his eyes and a 
bundle tied up in a handkerchief under his 
arm. She will never believe it of him, but he 
has cut away and left her.” 

“Pray,” said Mr. Gradgrind, “why will 
she never believe it of him ?” 

“Because those two were one. Because 
they were never asunder. Because, up to 
this time, he seemed to dote upon her,” said 
Childers, taking a step or two to look into 
the empty trunk. Both Mr. Childers and 
Master Kidderminster walked in a curious 
manner ; with their legs wider apart than 
the general run of men, and with a very 
knowing assumption of being stiff in the knees. 
This walk was common to all the male 
members of Sleary’s company, and was 
understood to express, that they were always 
on horseback. 

“ Poor Sissy! He had better have apprenticed 
her,” said Childers, giving his hair another 
shake, as he looked up from the empty box. 
“Now, he leaves her without anything to 
take to.” 

“ It is creditable to you, who have never 
been apprenticed, to express that opinion,” 
returned Mr. Gradgrind, approvingly. 

“ / never apprenticed ? I wms apprenticed 
when I was seven year old. Did the can- 
vass, more or less, every day of my life till I 
was out of my time,” said Childers. Seeing 
Mr. Gradgrind at a loss, he explained very 
clearly by circular motion of his hand, and by 
the rapid interjections, “Hi ! hi ! hi 1” uttered 
as stimulants to a supposititious horse, that 
doing the canvass was synonymous with 
riding round the ring. 

“ Oh ! You mean that ?” said Mr. Grad- 
grind, rather resentfully, as having been 
defrauded of his good opinion. “ I was net 
aware of its being the custom to apprentice 
young persons to ” 

“ Idleness,” Mr. Bounderby put in with a 
loud laugh. “ No, by the Lord Harry ! 
Nor I !” 

“ Her father always had it in his head,” 
resumed Childers, feigning unsconsciousness 
of Mr. Bounderby’s existence, “ that she was 
to be taught the deuce-and-all of education. 
How it got into his head, I can’t say ; I can 
only say that it never got out. He has been 
picking up a bit of reading for her, here — 
and a bit of writing for her, there — and a bit 
of cyphering for her, somewhere else — these 
seven years. If she had been apprenticed, 
she would have been doing the garlands in an 
independent way by this time.” 

Mr. E. W. B. Childers took one of his hands 
out of his pockets^ stroked his face and chin, 
and looked, with a good deal of doubt and a 
little hope, as Mr. Gradgrind. From the 
first he had sought to conciliate that gentle- 
man for the sake of the deserted girl. 


HARD TIMES. 


13 


“ When Sissy got into the school here,” he 
pursued, “ her father was as pleased as Punch. 
I couldn’t altogether make out why, myself, 
as we were not stationary here, being but 
comers and goers anywhere. I suppose, 
however, he had this move in his mind — he 
was always half cracked — and then considered 
her provided for. If you should happen to 
have looked in to-night, for the purpose of 
telling him that you were going to do her any 
little service, ” said Mr. Childers, stroking his 
face again, and repeating his look, “it 
would be very fortunate and well timed ; 
very fortunate and well timed.” 

“ On the contrary,” returned Mr. Grad- 
grind. “ I came to tell him that her con- 
nexions made her not an object for the school, 
and that she must not attend any more. 
Still, if her father really has left her, without 
any connivance on her part — Bounderby, let 
me have a word with you.” 

Upon this, Mr. Childers politely betook 
himself, with his equestrian walk, to the 
landing outside the door, and there stood 
stroking his face and softly whistling. While 
thus engaged, he overheard such phrases in 
Mr. Bounderby’s voice, as “ No. I say no. 
I advise you not. I say by no means.” 
While from Mr. Gradgrind, he heard in his 
much lower tone the words, “ But even as an 
example to Louisa, of what this pursuit, which 
has been the subject of a vulgar curiosity, leads 
to and ends in. Think of it, Bounderby, in 
that point of view.” 

Meanwhile, the various members of Sleary’s 
company gradually gathered together from 
the upper regions, where they were quartered, 
and, from standing about, talking in low 
voices to one another and to Mr. Childers, 
gradually insinuated themselves and him into 
the room. There were two or three handsome 
young women among them, with their two or 
three husbands, and their two or three 
mothers, and their eight or nine little chil- 
dren, who did the fairy business when re- 
quired. The father of one of the families was 
in the habit of balancing the father of another 
of the families on the top of a great pole ; the 
father of a third family often made a pyramid 
of both those fathers, with Master Kidder- 
minster for the apex, and himself for the base ; 
all the fathers could dance upon rolling 
casks, stand upon bottles, catch knives and 
balls, twirl hand-basins, ride upon anything, 
jump over everything, and stick at nothing. 
All the mothers could (and did) dance, upon the 
slack wire and the tight rope, and perform 
rapid acts on bare-backed steeds ; none of them 
were at all particular in respect of showing 
their legs ; and one of them, alone in a Greek 
chariot, drove six in hand into every town 
they came to. They all assumed to be mighty 
rakish and knowing, they were not very tidy 
in their private dresses, they were not at all 
orderly in their domestic arrangements, and 
the combined literature of the whole company 
would have produced but a poor letter on any 


subject. Yet there was a remarkable gentle- 
ness and childishness about these people, a 
special inaptitude for any kind of sharp 
practice, and an untiring readiness to help 
and pity one another, deserving, often of 
as much respect, and always of as much 
generous construction, as the every-day vir- 
tues of any class of people in the world. 

Last of all appeared Mr. Sleary: a stout 
man as already mentioned, with one fixed eye 
and one loose eye, a voice (if it can be called 
so) like the efforts of a broken old pair of 
bellows, a flabby surface, and a muddled head 
which was never sober and never drunk. 

“ Thquire ! ” said Mr. Sleary, who was 
troubled with asthma, and whose breath came 
far too thick and heavy for the letter s, 
“Your thervant! Thith ith a bad piethe of 
bithnith, thith ith. You’ve heard of my 
Clown and hith dog being thuppothed to have 
morrithed ? ” 

He addressed Mr. Gradgrind, who answered 
“ Yes.” 

“Well Thquire,” he returned, taking off 
his hat, and rubbing the lining with his 
pocket-handkerchief, which he kept inside it 
for the purpose. “ Ith it your intentionth to 
do anything for the poor girl, Thquire ? ” 

“I shall have something to propose to her 
when he comes back,” said Mr. Gradgrind. 

“Glad to hear it, Thquire. Not that I 
want to get rid of the child, any more than I 
want to thtand in her way. I’m willing to 
take her prentith, though at her age ith late. 
My voithe ith a little huthky, Thquire, and 
not eathy heard by them ath don’t know me ; 
but if you’d been chilled and heated, heated 
and chilled, chilled and heated, in the ring 
when you wath young, ath often ath I have 
been, your voithe wouldn’t have lathted out, 
Thquire, no more than mine.” 

“ I dare say not,” said Mr. Gradgrind. 

“What thall it be, Thquire, while you 
wait ? Thall it be Therry ? Give it a name, 
Thquire!” said Mr. Sleary, with hospitable 
ease. 

“ Nothing for me, I thank you,” said Mr 
Gradgrind. 

“ Don’t thay nothing, Thquire. What doth 
your friend thay ? If you haven’t took your 
feed yet, have a glath of bitterth.” 

Here his daughter Josephine — a pretty 
fair-haired girl of eighteen, who had been 
tied on a horse at two years old, and had 
made a will at twelve, which she always 
carried about with her, expressive of her 
dying desire to be drawn to the grave by the 
two piebald ponies — cried “Father, hush! 
she has come back! ” Then came Sissy Jupe, 
running into the room as she had run out of 
it. And when she saw them all assembled, 
and saw their looks, and saw no father there, 
she broke into a most deplorable cry, and took 
refuge on the bosom of the most accomplised 
tight-rope lady (herself in the family way), 
who knelt down on the floor to nurse her and 
to weep over her. 


14 


HARD TIMES. 


“ Ith an infernal thame, upon my thoul it 
ith,” said Sleary. 

“ 0 my dear father, my good kind father, 
where are you gone? You are gone to try 
to do me some good I know ! You are gone 
away for my sake, I am sure. And how 
miserable and helpless you will be without 
me, poor, poor father, until you come back !” 
It was so pathetic to hear her saying many 
things of this kind, with her face turned 
upward, and her arms stretched out as if she 
were trying to stop his departing shadow and 
embrace it, that no one spoke a word until 
Mr. Bounderby (growing impatient) took the 
case in hand. 

“ Now, good people all,” said he “ this is 
wanton waste of time. Let the girl understand 
the fact. Let her take it from me, if you 
like, who have been run away from, myself. 
Here, what’s your name? Your father has 
absconded — deserted you — and you mustn’t 
expect to see him again as long as you live.” 

They cared so little for plain Fact, these 
people, and were in that advanced state of 
degeneracy on the subject, that instead of 
being impressed by the speaker’s strong 
common sense, they took it in extraordinary 
dudgeon. The men muttered “ Shame !” and 
the women “Brute!” and Sleary, in some 
haste, communicated the following hint, apart 
to Mr. Bounderby. 

“ I tell you what, Thquire. To thpeak plain 
to you, my opinion ith that you had better 
cut it thort, and drop it. They’re a very good 
natur’d people, my people, but they’re accuth- 
tomed to be quick in their movementh ; and 
if you don’t act upon my advithe, I’m damned 
if I don’t believe they’ll pitch you out o’ 
winder.” 

Mr. Bounderby being restrained by this 
mild suggestion, Mr. Gradgrind found an 
opening for his eminently practical exposition 
of the subject. 

“ It is of no moment,” said he, “ Whether 
this person is to be expected back at any 
time, or the contrary. He is gone away, and 
there is no present expectation of his return. 
That, I believe, is agreed on all hands.” 

“ Thath agreed, Thquire. Thtick to that !” 
From Sleary. 

“Well then. I, who came here to inform 
the father of the poor girl, Jupe, that she 
could not be received at the school any more, 
in consequence of there being practical ob- 
jections, into which I need not enter, to the 
reception there of the children of persons so 
employed, am prepared in these altered cir- 
cumstances to make a proposal. I am willing 
to take charge of you, Jupe, and to educate 
you, and provide for you. The only condition 
(over and above your good behaviour) I make 
is, that you decide now, at once, whether to 
accompany me or remain here. Also, that if 
you accompany me now, it is understood that 
you communicate no more with any of your 
friends who are here present. These observa- 
tions comprise the whole of the case.” 


“ At the thame time,” said Sleary, “ I 
mutht put in my word, Thquire, tho that both 
thides of the banner may be equally theen. 
If you like, Thethilia, to be prentitht, you 
know the natur of the work and you know 
your companionth. Emma Gordon, in whothe 
lap you’re lyin’ at prethent would be a 
mother to you, and Joth’phine would be a 
thithter to you. I don’t pretend to be of the 
angel breed mythelf, and I don’t thay but 
what, when you mith’d your tip, you’d find 
me cut up rough, and thwear an oath or two 
at you. But what I thay, Thquire, ith that 
good tempered or bad tempered I never did a 
horthe a injury yet, no more than thwearing at 
him went, and that I don’t expect I thall begin 
otherwithe at my time of life, with a rider. I 
never wath muth of a Cackler, Thquire, and I 
have thed my thay.” 

The latter part of this speech was addressed 
to Mr. Gradgrind, who received it with a grave 
inclination of his head, and then remarked. 

“ The only observation I will make to you, 
Jupe, in the way of influencing your decision, 
is, that it is highly desirable to have a sound 
practical education, and that even your father 
himself (from what I understand) appears, 
on your behalf, to have known and felt that 
much. 

The last words had a visible effect upon her. 
She stopped in her wild crying, a little de- 
tached herself from Emma Gordon, and turned 
her face full upon her patron. The whole 
company perceived the force of the change, 
and drew a long breath together, that plainly 
said, “ she will go !” 

“ Be sure you know your own mind, Jupe,” 
Mr. Gradgrind cautioned her ; “ I say no more. 
Be sure you know your own mind !” 

“ When father comes back,” cried the - girl, 
bursting into tears again after a minute’s 
silence, how will he ever find me if I go 
away ?” 

“ You may be quite at ease,” said Mr. Grad- 
grind, calmly ; he worked out the whole mat- 
ter like a sum ; “ you may be quite at ease, 
Jupe, on that score. In such a case, your father, 
I apprehend must find out Mr. ” 

“ Thleary. Thath my name, Thquire. Not 
athamed of it. Known all over England, and 
alwayth paythe ith way.” 

“ Must find out Mr. Sleary, w r ho would then 
let him know where you went. I should have 
no power of keeping you against his wish, and 
he would have no difficulty, at any time in 
finding Mr. Thomas Gradgrind of Coketown. 
I am well known.” 

“ Well known,” assented Mr. Sleary, rolling 
his loose eye. “You’re one of the thort, 
Thquire, that keepth a prethious thight of 
money out of the houthe. But never mind 
that at prethent.” 

There was another silence ; and then she 
exclaimed, sobbing with her hands before her 
face, “ 0 give me my clothes, give me 
clothes, and let me go away before I break 
my heart!” 


HARD TIMES. 


15 


The women sadly bestirred themselves to 
get the clothes together — it was soon done, 
tor they were not many — and to pack them 
in a basket which had often travelled with 
them. Sissy sat all the time, upon the ground, 
still sobbing and covering her eyes. Mr. 
Gradgrind and his friend Bounderby stood 
near the door, ready to take her away. Mr. 
Sleary stood in the middle of the room, with 
the male members of the company about him, 
exactly as he would have stood in the centre 
of the ring during his daughter Josephine’s 
performance. He wanted nothing but his 
whip. 

The basket packed in silence, they brought 
her bonnet to her, and smoothed her disor- 
dered hair, and put it on. Then they pressed 
about her, and bent over her in very natural 
attitudes, kissing and embracing her ; and 
brought the children to take leave of her ; 
and were a tender-hearted, simple, foolish set 
of women altogether. 

“ Now, Jupe,” said Mr. Gradgrind. “ If you 
are quite determined, come !” 

But she had to take her farewell of the male 
part of the company yet, and every one of 
them had to unfold his arms (for they all 
assumed the professional attitude when they 
found themselves near Sleary), and give her a 
parting kiss — Master Kidderminster excepted, 
in whose young nature there was an original 
flavour of the misanthrope, who was also 
known to have harboured matrimonial views, 
and who moodily withdrew. Mr. Sleary was 
reserved until the last. Opening his arms 
wide he took her by both her hands, and would 
have sprung her up and down, after the riding- 
master manner of congratulating young ladies 
on their dismounting from a rapid act ; but 
there was no rebound in Sissy, and she only 
stood before him crying. 

“ Good bye, my dear 1” said Sleary. “ You’ll 
make your fortun, I hope, and none of our 
poor folkth will ever trouble you, I’ll pound it. 

I with your father hadn’t taken kith dog with 
him ; ith a ill-conwenientk to have the dog 
out of the billth. But on thecond thoughth, 
he wouldn’t have performed without hith 
mathter, tho ith ath broad ath ith long !” 

With that, he regarded her attentively with 
his fixed eye, surveyed his company with the 
loose one, kissed her, shook his head, and 
handed her to Mr. Gradgrind as to a horse. 

“ There the ith, Tkquire,” he said, sweeping 
her with a professional glance as if she were 
being adjusted in her seat, “ and she’ll do you 
juthtithe. Goodbye, Tkethilia!” 

“ Good bye Cecilia !” “ Good bye Sissy !” 

God bless you dear !” In a variety of voices 
from all the room. 

But the riding-master eye had observed 
the bottle of the nine oils in her bosom, and 
he now interposed with “Leave the bottle, my 
dear ; ith large to carry ; it will be of no uthe 
to you now. Give it to me !” 

“No, no!” she said, in another burst of 
tears. “Oh no ! Pray let me keep it for 


father till he comes back ? He will want it, 
when he comes back. He had never thought 
of going away, when he sent me for it. I 
must keep it for him, if you please !” 

“ Tho be it, my dear. (You thee how it 
ith, Thquire !) Farewell,. Thethilia! Mylatht 
wordth to you ith thith, Thtick to the 
termth of your engagement, be obedient to 
the Thquire, and forget uth. But if, when 
you’re grown up and married and well off, 
you come upon any horthe-riding ever, don’t 
be hard upon it, don’t be croth with it, give 
it a Bethpeak if you can, and think you might 
do wurth. People mutht be amuthed, Thquire, 
thomehow,” continued Sleary, rendered more 
pursy than ever, by so much talking 5 “ they 
can’t be alwayth a working, nor yet they can’t 
be alwayth a learning. Make the betht of uth : 
not the wurtht. I’ve got my living out of the 
horthe-riding all my life, I know ; but I con- 
thider that I lay down the philothophy of the 
thubject when I thay to you, Thquire, make 
the betht of uth : not the wurtht !” 

The Sleary philosophy -was propounded as 
they went down stairs ; and the fixed eye of 
Philosophy — and its rolling eye, too — soon 
lost the three figures and the basket in the 
darkness of the street. 


CHAPTER VII. 

Mr. Bounderby being a bachelor, an 
elderly lady presided over his establishment, 
in consideration of a certain annual stipend. 
Mrs. Sparsit was this lady’s name ; and she 
was a prominent figure in attendance on Mr. 
Bounderby’s car, as it rolled along in triumph 
with the Bully of humility inside. 

For, Mrs. Sparsit had not only seen different 
days, but was highly connected. She had a 
great aunt living in these very times called 
Lady Scadgers. Mr. Sparsit, deceased, of whom 
she was the relict, had been by the mother's 
side what Mrs. Sparsit, still called “ a Powler.” 
Strangers of limited information and dull ap- 
prehension were sometimes observed not to 
know what a Powler was, and even to appear 
uncertain whether it might be a business, or 
a political party, or a profession of faith. The 
better class of minds, however, did not need 
to be informed that the Powlers were an 
ancient stock, who could trace themselves so 
exceedingly far back that it was not surpris- 
ing if they sometimes lost themselves — which 
they had rather frequently done, as respected 
horse-flesh, blind-hookey, Hebrew monetary 
transactions, and the Insolvent Debtors 
Court. 

The late Mr. Sparsit,- being by the mother’s 
side a Powler, married this lady, being by the 
father’s side a Scadgers. Lady. Scadgers (an 
immensely fat old woman, with an inordinate 
appetite for butcher’s meat, and a mysterious 
leg, which had now refused to get out of bed for 
fourteen years) contrived the marriage, at a 
period when Sparsit was just of age, and 
chiefly noticeable for a slender body, weakly 


16 


HARD TIMES. 


supported oil two long slim props, and sur- 
mounted by no head worth mentioning. He 
inherited a fair fortune from his uncle, but 
owed it all before he came into it, and spent 
it twice over immediately afterwards. Thus, 
when he died, at twenty-four (the scene of 
his decease Calais, and the cause brandy), he 
did not leave his widow, from whom he had 
been separated soon after the honeymoon, in 
affluent circumstances. That bereaved lady, 
fifteen years older than he, fell presently at 
deadly feud with her only relative, Lady 
Scadgers ; and, partly to spite her ladyship, 
and partly to maintain herself, went out as a 
companion. And here she was now, in her 
elderly days, with the Coriolanian style of nose 
and the dense black eyebrows which had cap- 
tivated Sparsit, making Mr. Bouuderby’s tea 
as he took his breakfast. 

If Bounderby had been a Conqueror, and 
Mrs. Sparsit a captive Princess whom he 
took about as a feature in his state-processions, 
he could not have made a greater flourish 
with her than he habitually did. Just as it 
belonged to his boastfulness to depreciate his 
own extraction, so it belonged to it to exalt 
Mrs. Sparsit’s. In the measure that he would 
not allow his own youth to have been attended 
by a single favourable circumstance, he 
brightened Mrs. Sparsit’s juvenile career with 
every possible advantage, and showered 
wagon-loads of early roses all over that lady’s 
path. “ And yet, sir,” he would say, “ how 
does it turn out after all ? Why here she is at 
a hundred a year (I give her a hundred, 
which she is pleased to term handsome), keep- 
ing the house of Josiah Bounderby of Coke- 
town l” v 

Nay, he made this foil of his so very widely 
known that third parties took it up, and 
handled it on some occasions with considerable 
briskness. It was one of the most exasperat- 
ing attributes of Bounderby, that he not only 
sang his own praises but stimulated other 
men to sing them. There was a moral infec- 
tion of claptrap in him. Strangers, modest 
enough elsewhere, started up at dinners in 
Coketown, and boasted, in quite a rampant 
way, of Bounderby. They made him out to 
be the Royal arms, the Union- Jack, Magna 
Charta, John Bull, Habeas Corpus, the Bill of 
Rights, An Englishman’s house is his castle, 
Church and State, and God save the Queen, 
all put together. And as often (and it was 
very often) as an orator of this kind brought 
into his peroration. 

“ Princes and Lords may flourish or may fade, 

A breath can make them, as a breath has made : M 

— it was, for certain, more or less understood 
among the company that he had heard of 
Mrs. Sparsit. 

“ Mr. Bounderby,” said Mrs. Sparsit, “ you 
are unusually slow, sir, with your breakfast 
this morning.” 

" Why, ma’am,” he returned, “ I am think- 
ing about Tom Gradgrind’s whim ; ” Tom 


Gradgrind, for a bluff independent manner of 
speaking — as if somebody were always endea- 
vouring to bribe him with immense sums to 
say Thomas, and he wouldn’t ; “ Tom Grad- 
grind’s whim, ma’am, of bringing up the 
tumbling-girl.” 

“ The girl is now waiting to know,” said 
Mrs. Sparsit, “ -whether she is to go straight 
to the school, or up to the Lodge.” 

“ She must wait, ma’am,” answered Boun- 
derby, “ till I know myself. We shall hare 
Tom Gradgrind dorm here presently, I sup- 
pose. If he should wish her to remain here a 
day or two longer, of course she can, ma’am.” 

“ Of course she can if you wish it, Mr. 
Bounderby.” 

“ I told him I would give her a shake-down 
here, last night, in order that he might sleep 
on it before he decided to let her have any 
association with Louisa.” 

“ Indeed, Mr. Bounderby? Very thoughtful 
of you!” 

Mrs. Sparsit’s Coriolanian nose underwent 
a slight expansion of the nostrils, and her 
black eyebrows contracted as she took a sip 
of tea. 

“ It’s tolerably clear to me ,” said Bounderby, 
“ that the little puss can get small good out of 
such companionship.” 

“ Are you speaking of young Miss Grad- 
grind, Mr. Bounderby V 1 

“ Yes, ma’am, I am speaking of Louisa.” 

“Your observation being limited to * little 
puss,’ ” said Mrs. Sparsit, “ and there being 
two little girls in question, I did not know 
which might be indicated by that expression.” 

“Louisa,” repeated Mr. Bounderby. 
“Louisa, Louisa.” 

“ You are quite another father to Louisa, 
sir.” Mrs. Sparsit took a little more tea ; and, 
as she bent her again contracted eyebrows 
over her steaming cup, rather looked as if her 
classical countenance were invoking the 
infernal gods. 

“ If you had said I was another father to 
Tom — young Tom, I mean, not my friend 
Tom Gradgrind — you might have been nearer 
the mark. I am going to take young Tom 
into my office. Going to have him under my 
wing, ma’am.” 

“ Indeed ? Rather young for that, is he not, 
sir ?” Mrs. Sparsit’s “ sir,” in addressing Mr. 
Bounderby, was a word of ceremony, rather 
exacting consideration for herself in the use, 
than honouring him. 

“ I’m not going to take him at once ; he is 
to finish his educational cramming before 
then,” said Bounderby. “ By the Lord 
Harry, he’ll have enough of it, first and last ! 
He’d open his eyes, that boy would, if he 
knew how empty of learning my young man 
was, at his time of life.” 'Which, by the by, 

' le probably did know, for he had heard of it 
often enough. “ But it’s extraordinary the 
difficulty I have on scores of such subjects, in 
speaking to any one on equal terms. Here, 
for example, I have been speaking to you this 


HARD TIMES. 


17 


morning about Tumblers. Why, what do you 
know about tumblers ? At the time when, to 
have been a tumbler in the mud of the streets, 
would have been a godsend to me, a prize 
in the lottery to me, you were at the Italian 
Opera. You were coming out of the Italian 
Opera, ma’am, in white satin and jewels, a 
blaze of splendor, when I hadn’t a penny to 
buy a link to light you.” 

“I certainly, sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit, 
with a dignity serenely mournful, “ was 
familiar with the Italian Opera at a very 
early age.” 

“Egad, ma'am, so was I,” said Bounderby, 
u — with the wrong side of it. A hard bed the 
pavement of its Arcade used to make, I as- 
sure you. Peopla like you, ma’am, accus- 
tomed from infancy to lie on Down feathers, 
have no idea how hard a paving stone is, 
without trying it. No no, it’s of no use my 
talking to you about tumblers. I should 
speak of foreign dancers, and the West End of 
London, and May Fair, and lords and ladies 
and honourables.” 

“ I trust, sir,” rejoined Mrs. Sparsit, with 
decent resignation, “ it is not necessary that 
you should do anything of that kind. I hope 
I have learnt how to accommodate myself to 
the changes of life. If I have acquired an 
interest in hearing of your instructive ex- 
periences, and can scarcely hear enough of 
them, I claim no merit for that, since I believe 
it is a general sentiment.” 

“ Well, ma’am,” said her patron, “ perhaps 
some people may be pleased to say that they do 
like to hear, in his own unpolished way, what 
Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, has gone 
through. But you must confess that you 
were born in the lap of luxury, yourself. 
Come, ma’am, you know you were born in the 
lap of luxury.” 

“ I do not, sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit with 
a shake of her bead, “ deny it.” 

Mr. Bounderby was obliged to get up from 
table, and stand with his back to the fire, 
looking at her ; she was such an enhancement 
of his virtues. 

“ And you were in crack society. Devilish 
high society,” he said, warming his legs. 

“ It is true, sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit, with 
an affectation of humility the very opposite of 
his, and therefore in no danger of jostling jt. 

“You were in the tiptop fashion, and all 
the rest of it,” said Mr. Bounderby. 

“Yes, sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit, with a 
kind of a social widowhood upon her. “ It is 
unquestionably true.” 

Mr. Bounderby, bending himself at the 
knees, literally embraced his legs in his great 
satisfaction, and laughed aloud. Mr. and Miss 
Gradgrind being then announced, he received 
the former with a shake of the hand, and the 
latter with a kiss. 

“ Can Jupe be sent here, Bounderby ?” asked 
Mr. Gradgrind. 

Certainly. So Jupe was sent there. On 
coming in, she curtseyed to Mr. Bounderby, 


and to his friend Tom Gradgrind, and also 
to Louisa ; but in her confusion, unluckily 
omitted Mrs. Sparsit. Observing this, the 
blustering Bounderby had the following re- 
marks to make : 

“ Now, I tell you what, my girl. The name 
of that lady by the teapot, is Mrs. Sparsit. 
That lady acts as mistress of this house, 
and she is a highly connected lady. Conse- 
quently, if ever you come again into any room 
in this house, you will make a short stay in it 
if you don’t behave towards that lady in your 
most respectful manner. Now, I don’t care a 
button what you do to me, because I don’t 
affect to be anybody. So far from having high 
connections, I have no connections at all, and 
I come of the scum of the earth. But towards 
that lady, I do care what you do ; and you 
shall do what is deferential and respectful, or 
you shall not come here.” 

“ I hope, Bounderby,” said Mr. Gradgrind, 
in a conciliatory voice, “ that this was merely 
an oversight.” 

“ My friend Tom Gradgrind suggests, Mrs. 
Sparsit,” said Bounderby, “ that this was 
merely an oversight. Very likely. However, 
as you are aware, ma’am, I don’t allow of even 
oversights towards you.” 

“You are very good indeed, sir,” returned 
Mrs. Sparsit, shaking her head with her State 
humility. “ It is not worth speaking of.” 

Sissy, who all this time had been faintly 
excusing herself with tears in her eyes, was 
now waved over by the master of the house 
to Mr. Gradgrind. She stood, looking intently 
at him, and Louisa stood coldly by, with her 
eye’s upon the ground, while he proceeded 
thus : 

“Jupe, I have made up my mind to take 
you into my house : and, when you are not in 
attendance at the school, to employ you 
about Mrs. Gradgrind, who is rather an 
invalid. I have explained to Miss Louisa— 
this is Miss Louisa — the miserable but 
natural end of your late career ; and you are 
to expressly understand that the whole of 
that subject is passed, and is not to be referred 
to any more, From this time you begin your 
history. You are, at present, ignorant, I 
know.” 

“ Yes, sir, very,” she answered, curtseying 
with a trembling lip. 

“I shall have the satisfaction of causing 
you to be strictly educated ; and you will bo 
a living proof to all who come into com- 
munication with you, of the advantages of the 
training you will receive. You will be 
reclaimed and formed. You have been in the 
habit, now, of reading to your father, and those 
people I found you among, I dare say ? ” said 
Mr. Gradgrind, beckoning her nearer to him 
before he said so, and dropping his voice, 

“ Only to father and Merrylegs, sir. At 
least I mean to father, when Merrylegs was 
always there.” 

“Never mind Merrylegs, Jupe,” said Mr 
Gradgrind, with a passing frown. “ I don’t 


18 


HARD TIMES. 


ask about him. I understand you to have 
been in the habit of reading to your father ? ” 

“ 0 yes, sir, thousands of times. They 
were the happiest— 0, of all the happy times 
we had together, sir ! ” 

It was only now, when her grief broke out, 
that Louisa looked at her. 

“And what,” asked Mr. Gradgrind, in a 
still lower voice, “ did you read to your 
father, Jupe ? ” 

“ About the Fairies, sir, and the Dwarf, and 
the Hunchback, and the Genies,” she sobbed 
out. 

“ There ! ” said Mr. Gradgrind, “ that is 
enough. Never breathe a word of such 
destructive nonsense any more. Bounderby, 
this is a case for rigid training, and I shall 
observe it with interest.” 

“Well,” returned Mr. Bounderby, “ I have 
given you my opinion already, and I shouldn’t 
do as you do. But, very well, very well. 
Since you aite bent upon it, very well ! ” 

So, Mr. Gradgrind and his daughter took 
Cecilia Jupe off with them to Stone Lodge, 
and on the way Louisa never spoke one word, 
good or bad. And Air. Bounderby -went 
about his daily pursuits. And Mrs. Sparsit 
got behind her eyebrows and meditated in 
the gloom of that retreat, all the morning. 

chapter Yin. 

Let us strike the key note again, before 
pursuing the tune. 

When she w r as half a dozen years younger, 
Louisa had been overheard to begin a con- 
versation with her brother one day, # by 
saying “Tom I wonder” — upon which Mr. 
Gradgrind, who was the person overhearing, 
stepped forth into the light, and said, “Louisa, 
never wonder ! ” 

Herein lay the spring of the mechanical 
art and mystery of educating the reason 
without stooping to the cultivation of the 
sentiments and affections. Never wonder. By 
means of addition, subtraction, multiplication, 
and division, settle everything somehow, and 
never wonder. Bring to me, says M’Choak- 
umchild, yonder baby just able to walk, and 
I will engage it shall never wonder. 

Now, besides very many babies just able to 
walk, there happened to be in Coketown a 
considerable population of babies who had 
been walking against time towards the infinite 
world, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years and 
more. These portentous infants being alarm- 
ing creatures to stalk about in any human 
society, the eighteen denominations inces- 
santly scratched one another’s faces and 
pulled one another’s hair, by "way of agree- 
ing on the steps to be taken for their 
improvement — which they never did ; a 
surprising, circumstance, when the happy 
adaptation of the means to the end is con- 
sidered. Still, although they differed in 
every other particular, conceivable and incon- 
ceivable (especially inconceivable), they were 


pretty well united on the point that these 
unlucky infants were never to wonder. Body 
number one, said they must take everything 
on trust. Body number two, said they must 
take everything on political economy. Body 
number three, w r rote 16aden little books for 
them, showing how the good growm-up baby 
invariably got to the Savings Bank, and the 
bad grown-up baby invariably got transported. 
Body number four, under dreary pretences 
of being droll (when it was very melancholy 
indeed), made the shallowest pretences of con- 
cealing pitfalls of knowledge, into which it 
was the duty of these babies to be smuggled 
and inveigled. But, all the bodies agreed that 
they were never to wonder. 

There was a library in Coketown. to which 
general access was easy. Mr. Gradgrind 
greatly tormented his mind about what the 
people read in this library : a point whereon 
little rivers of tabular statements periodically 
flowed into the howling ocean of tabular 
statements, which no diver ever got to any 
depth in and came up sane. It was a dis- 
heartening circumstance, but a melancholy 
fact, that even these readers persisted in won- 
dering. They wondered about human nature, 
human passions, human hopes and fears, the 
struggles, triumphs, and defeats, the cares and 
joys and sorrows, the lives and deaths, of com- 
mon men and women! Facts and figures were 
not always all sufficient for them, as they 
would have been for good machines. They 
sometimes, after fifteen hours’ work, sat down 
to read mere fables about men and women, 
more or less like themselves, and children, 
more or less like their own. They took De 
Foe to their bosoms, instead of Euclid, and 
seemed to be on the whole more comforted by 
Goldsmith than by Cocker. Mr. Gradgrind 
was for ever working, in print and out of print, 
at this eccentric sum, and he never could 
make out how it yielded this unaccountable 
product. 

“ I am sick of my life, Loo. I hate it alto- 
gether, and I hate everybody except you,” 
said the unnatural young Thomas Gradgrind 
in the hair-cutting chamber at twilight. 

“ You don’t hate Sissy, Tom.” 

“ I hate to be obliged to call her Jupe. And 
she hates me,” said Tom moodily. 

‘.‘No she does not, Tom, I am sure.” 

“ She must,’ said Tom. “ She must just 
hate and detest the whole set-out of us. 
They’ll bother her head off, I think, before 
they have done with her. Already she’s get- 
ting as pale as wax, and as heavy as — I am.” 

Young Thomas expressed these sentiments, 
sitting astride of a chair before the fire, with 
his arms on the back, and his sulky face on 
his arms. His sister sat in the darker corner 
by the fireside, now looking at him, now 
looking at the bright sparks as they dropped 
upon the hearth. 

“ As to me,” said Tom, tumbling his hair 
all manner of ways with his sulky hands, “ I 
am a Donkey, that’s what I am. I am as 


HARD TIMES, 


19 


obstinate as one, I am more stupid than one, 
I get as much pleasure as one, and I should 
like to kick like one.” 

“ Not me, I hope, Tom ?” 

“ No, Loo ; I wouldn’t hurt you. I made 
an exception of you at first. I don’t know 
what this jolly old — Jaundiced Jail,” said 
Tom, pausing to find a sufficiently compli- 
mentary and expressive name for the parental 
roof, aiid seeming to relieve his mind for a 
moment by the strong alliteration of this one, 
“ would be without you.” 

“ Indeed, Tom ? Do you really and truly 
say so ?” 

“ Why, of course I do. What’s the use of 
talking about it ! ” returned Tom, chafing 
his faee on his coat-sleeve as if to mortify 
his flesh, and have it in unison with his spirit. 

“ Because, Tom,” said his sister, after 
silently watching the sparks awhile, “as I get 
older, and nearer growing up, I often sit won- 
dering here and think how unfortunate it is 
for me that I can’t reconcile you to home 
better than I am able to do. I don’t know 
what other girls know. I can’t play to you, 
or sing to you. I can’t talk to you so as to 
lighten your mind, for I never see any amusing 
sights or read any amusing books that it would 
be a pleasure or a relief to you to talk about, 
when you are tired.” 

“ Well, no more do I. I am as bad as you 
in that respect ; and I am a Mule too, which 
you’re not. If father was determined to make 
me either a Prig or a Mule, and I am not a 
Prig, why, it stands to reason, I must be a 
Mule. And so I am,” said Tom, desperately. 

“ It’s a great pity,” said Louisa, after ano- 
ther pause, and speaking thoughtfully out of 
her dark corner; “it’s a great pity, Tom. 
It’s very unfortunate for both of us.” 

“Oh! You.” said Tom; “you are a girl, 
Loo, and a girl comes out of it better than a 
boy does. I don’t miss anything in you. You 
are the only pleasure I have — you can brighten 
even this place — and you can always lead me 
as you like.” 

“ You are a dear brother, Tom ; and while 
you think I can do such things, I don’t so 
much mind knowing better. Though I do 
know better, Tom, and am very sorry for it.” 
She came and kissed him, and went back into 
her corner again. 

“ I wish I could collect all the Facts we hear 
so much about,” said Tom, spitefully setting 
his teeth, “ and all the Figures, and all the 
people who found them out ; and I wish I 
could put a thousand barrels of gunpowder 
under them, and blow them all up together ! 
However, when I go to live with old Boun- 
derby, I’ll have my revenge.” 

“Your revenge, Tom?” 

“ I mean, I’ll enjoy myself a little, and go 
about and see something, and hear something. 
I’ll recompense myself for the way in which 
I have been brought up.” 

“ But don’t disappoint yourself beforehand, 
Tom. Mr. Bounderby thinks as father thinks, 


and is a great deal rougher, and not half so 
kind.” 

“ Oh !” said Tom, laughing ; “ I don’t mind 
that. I shall very well know how to manago 
and smooths old Bounderby 1” 

Their shadows were defined upon the wall, 
but those of the high presses in the room 
were all blended together on the wall and on 
the ceiling, as if the brother and sister were 
everhung by a dark cavern. Or, a fanciful 
imagination — if such treason could have been 
there — might have made it out to be the 
shadow of their subject, and of its lowering 
association with their future. 

“ What is your great mode of smoothing and 
managing, Tom? Is it a secret?” 

“ Oh !” said Tom, “ if it is a secret, it’s not 
far off. It’s you. You are his little pet, 
you are his favourite ; he’ll do anything for 
you. When he says to me what I don’t like, 
I shall say to him, ‘ My sister Loo will be 
hurt and disappointed, Mr. Bounderby. She 
always used to tell me she was sure you would 
be easier with me than this.’ That’ll bring 
him about, or nothing will.” 

After waiting for some answering remark, 
and getting none, Tom wearily relapsed into 
the present time, and twined himself yawning 
round and about the rails of his chair, and 
rumpled his head more and more, until he 
suddenly looked up, and asked : 

“ Have you gone to sleep, Loo ?” 

“ No, Tom. I am looking at the fire.” 

“You seem to find more to look at in it 
than ever I could find,” said Tom. “Another 
of the advantages, I suppose, of being a girl.” 

“ Tom,” enquired his sister, slowly, and in 
a curious tone, as if she were reading what 
she asked, in the fire, and it were not quite 
plainly written there, “ do you look forward 
with any satisfaction to this change to Mr. 
Bounderby’s ?” 

“ Why, there’s one thing to be said erf it,” re- 
turned Tom, pushing his chair from him, and 
standing up ; “ it will be getting away from 
home.” 

“ There is one thing to be said of it,” Louisa 
repeated in her former curious tone ; “ it will 
be getting away from home. Yes.” 

Not but what I shall be very unwilling, 
both to leave you, Loo, and to leave you 
here. But I must go, you know, whether I 
like it or not ; and I had better go where I can 
take with me some advantage of your in- 
fluence, than where I should lose it altogether. 
Don’t you see ?” 

“ Yes, Tom.” 

The answer was so long in coming, though 
there was no indecision in it, that Tom went 
and leaned on the back of her chair, to con- 
template the fire which so engrossed her, from 
her point of view, and see what he could make 
of it. 

“Except that it is a fire,” said Tom, “it 
looks to me as stupid and blank as everything 
else looks. What do you see in it ? Not the 
circus ?” 


20 


HARD TIMES. 


“I don’t see anything in it, Tom, parti- 
cularly. But since I have been looking at it, 
I have been wondering about you and me, 
grown up.” 

“ Wondering again !” said Tom. 

“I have such unmanageable thoughts,” 
returned his sister, “ that they will wonder.” 

“Then I beg of you, Louisa,” said Mrs. 
Gradgrind, who had opened the door without 
being heard, “ to do nothing of that descrip- 
tion, for goodness sake you inconsiderate girl, 
or I shall never hear the last of it from your 
father. And Thomas, it is really shameful, 
with my poor head continually wearing me 
out, that a boy brought up as you have been, 
and whose education has cost what yours has, 
should be found encouraging his sister to won- 
der, when he knows his father has expressly 
said that she is not to do it.” 

Louisa denied Tom’s participation in the 
offence ; but her mother stopped her with the 
conclusive answer, “Louisa, don’t tell me, in 
my state of health ; for unless you had been 
encouraged, it is morally and physically im- 
possible that you could have done it.” 

“ I was encouraged by nothing, mother, but 
by looking at the red sparks dropping out of 
the fire, and whitening and dying. It made me 
think, after all, how short my life would be, 
and how little I could hope to do in it.” 

“ Nonsense !” said Mrs. Gradgrind, rendered 
almost energetic. “Nonsense! Don’t stand 
there and tell me such stuff, Louisa, to my 
face, when you know very well that if it was 
ever to reach your father’s ears I should never 
hear the last of it. After all the trouble that 
has been taken with you ! After the lectures 
you have attended, and the experiments you 
have seen ! After I have heard you myself, when 
the whole of my right side has been benumbed, 
going on with your master about combustion, 
and calcination, and calorification, and I may 
say every kind of ation that could drive a poor 
invalid distracted, to hear you talking in this 
absurd way about sparks and ashes ! I wish,” 
whimpered Mrs. Gradgrind, taking a chair, 
and discharging her strongest point before suc- 
cumbing under these mere shadows of facts, 
“ Yes, I really do wish that I had never had 
a family, and then you would have known 
what it was to do without me !” 

GHAPTER IX. 

Sissy Jijpe had not an easy time of it, be- 
tween M'Choakumchild and Mrs. Grad- 
grind ; and was not without strong impulses, 
in the first months of her probation, to run 
away. It hailed facts all day long so very 
hard, and life in general was opened to her as 
such a closely-ruled cyphering-book, that 
assuredly she would have run away, but for 
only one restraint. 

It is lamentable to think of ; but this 
restraint was the result of no arithmetical 
process, was self-imposed in defiance of all 
calculation, and went dead against any table 


of probabilities that any Actuary would 
have drawn up from the premises. The girl 
believed that her father had not deserted her, 
and lived in the hope that he would come 
back, and in the faith that he would be made 
the happier by her remaining where she was. 

The wretched ignorance with which 
Jupe clung to this consolation, rejecting the 
superior comfort of knowing, on a sound 
arithmetical basis, that her father was an 
unnatural vagabond., filled Mr. Gradgrind with 
pity. Yet, what was to be done ? M'Choak- 
umchild reported that she had a very 
dense head for figures ; that, once possessed 
with a general idea of the globe, she took the 
smallest conceivable interest in its exact 
measurements j that she was extremely slow 
in the acquisition of dates, unless some pitiful 
incident happened to be connected therewith ; 
that she would burst into tears on being 
required (by the mental process) immediately 
to name the cost of two hundred and forty- 
seven muslin caps at fourteen pence halfpenny j 
that she was as low down, in the school, as 
low could be ; that after eight weeks of 
induction into the elements of Political Eco- 
nomy, she had only yesterday been set right by 
a prattler three feet high, for returning to 
the question, “ What is the first principle of 
this science?” the absurd answer, “To do 
unto others as I would that they should do 
unto me.” 

Mr. Gradgrind observed, shaking his head, 
that all this was very bad ; that it showed 
the necessity of infinite grinding at the mill 
of knowledge, as per system, schedule, blue 
book, report, and tabular statements A to Z ; 
and that Jupe “ must be kept to it.” So Jupe 
was kept to it, and because very low-spirited, 
but no wiser. 

“ It would be a fine thing to be you, Miss 
Louisa!” she said, one night, when Louisa 
had endeavoured to make her perplexities for 
next day something clearer to her. 

“ Do you think so ?” 

“ I should know so much, Miss Louisa. All 
that is difficult to me now, would be so easy 
then.” 

“ You might not be the better for it, Sissy.” 

Sissy submitted, after a little hesitation, 

“ I should not be the worse, Miss Louisa.” 
To which Miss Louisa answered, “I don’t 
know that.” 

There had been so little communication 
between these two — both because life at Stone 
Lodge went monotonously round like a piece 
of machinery which discouraged human in- 
terference, and because of the prohibition 
relative to Sissy’s past career — that they were 
still almost strangers. Sissy, with her dark 
eyes wonderingly directed to Louisa’s face, 
was uncertain whether to say more or to 
remain silent. , 

“ You are more useful to my mother, and 
more pleasant with her than I can ever be,” 
Louisa resumed. “You are pleasanter to 
‘ % than / am to mt/self.” 


HARD TIMES. 


21 


“ But, if you please, Miss,” Sissy pleaded, 
“ I am — 0 so stupid !” 

Louisa, with a brighter laugh than usual, 
told her she would be wiser by and by. 

“ You don't know,” said Sissy, half crying, 
“ what a stupid girl I am. All through school 
hours I make mistakes. Mr. and Mrs. 
M‘Choakumchild call me up, over and over 
again, regularly to make mistakes. I can’t 
help them. They seem to come natural 
to me.” 

“ Mr. and Mrs. M'Choakumchild never 
make any mistakes themselves, I suppose, 
Sissy ?” 

u O no!” she eagerly returned. “They 
know everything.” 

“ Tell me some of your mistakes.” 

“I am almost ashamed,” said Sissy, with 
reluctance. “But to-day, for instance, Mr. 
M‘Ckoakumchild was explaining to us about 
Natural Prosperity.” 

“ National, I think it must have been,” 
observed Louisa. 

“Yes, it was.— But isn’t it the same?” she 
timidly asked. 

“You had better say National, as he said 
so,” returned Louisa, with her dry reserve. 

“ National Prosperity. And he said, Now, 
this schoolroom is a Nation. And in this 
nation, there are fifty millions of money. 
Isn’t this a prosperous nation ? Girl number 
twenty, isn’t this a prosperous nation, and 
a’n’t you in a thriving state ?” 

“ What did you say ?” asked Louisa. 

“ Miss Louisa, I said I didn’t know. I 
thought I couldn’t know whether it was a 
prosperous nation or not, and whether I was 
in a thriving state or not, unless I knew who 
had got the money, and whether any of it 
was mine. But that had nothing to do with 
it. It was not in the figures at all,” said 
Sissy, wiping her eyes. 

“ That was a great mistake of yours,” 
observed Louisa. 

“Yes, Miss Louisa, I know it was now. 
Then Mr. M‘Choakumchild said he would try 
me again. And he said, this schoolroom is 
an immense town, and in it there are a million 
of inhabitants, and only five-and-twenty are 
starved to death in the streets, in the course 
of a year. What is your remark on that 
proportion ? And my remark was — for I 
couldn’t think of a better one — that I thought 
it must be just as hard upon those who were 
starved, whether the others were a million, 
or a million million. And that was wrong 
too.” 

“ Of course it was.” 

“ Then Mr. M‘Choakumchild said he would 
try me once more. And he said, Here are the 
stutter ings ” 

“ Statistics,” said Louisa. 

“ Yes, Miss Louisa— they always remind me 
of stutterings, and that’s another of my 
mistakes— of accidents upon the sea. And I 
find (Mr. M £ Choakumchild said) that in a 
given time a hundred thousand persons went 


to sea on long voyages, and only five hundred 
of them were drowned or burnt to death. 
What is the percentage ? And I said, Miss j” 
here Sissy fairly sobbed as confessing with 
extreme contrition to her greatest error ; “ I 
said it was nothing.” 

“ Nothing, Sissy?” 

“ Nothing, Miss — to the relations and friends 
of the people who were killed. I shall never 
learn,” said Sissy. “And the worst of all is, that 
although my poor father wished me so much 
to learn, and although I am so anxious to 
learn because he wished me to, I am afraid I 
don’t like it.” 

Louisa stood looking at the pretty modest 
head, as it drooped abashed before her, until 
it was raised again to glance at her face. 
Then she asked : 

“ Did your father know so much himself, 
that he wished you to be well taught too, 
Sissy ?” 

Sissy hesitated before replying, and so 
plainly showed her sense that they were en- 
tering on forbidden ground, that Louisa 
added, “ No one hears us ; and if any one did, 
I am sure no harm could be found in such an 
innocent question.” 

“ No, Miss Louisa,” answered Sissy, upon 
this encouragement, shaking her head at the 
same time ; “ father knows very little indeed. 
It’s as much as he can do to write ; and it’s 
more than people in general can do to read 
his writing. Though it’s plain to me.” 

“ Your mother ?” 

“ Father says she was quite a scholar. She 
died when I was born. She was j” Sissy 
made the terrible communication nervously ; 
“ she was a dancer.” 

“Did your father love her?” Louisa 
asked these questions with a strong, wild, 
wandering interest peculiar to her ; an in- 
terest gone astray like a banished creature, 
and hiding in solitary places. 

“ 0 yes ! as dearly as he loves me. Father 
loved me, first, for her sake. He carried me 
about with him when I was quite a baby. We 
have never been asunder from that time.” 

“ Yet he leaves you now, Sissy ?” 

“ Only for my good, Miss Louisa. Nobody 
understands him as I do ; nobody knows 
him as I do. When he left me for my good — 
he never would have left me for his own — I 
know he was almost broken-hearted with the 
trial. He will not be happy for a single 
minute, till he comes back.” 

“ Tell me more about him,” said Louisa, 
“I will never ask you again. Where did 
you live?” 

“ We travelled about the country, and had 
no fixed place to live in. Father’s a ” ; Sissy 
whispered the awful word ; “ a clown.” 

“ To make the people laugh ?” said Louisa, 
with a nod of intelligence. 

“ Yes. But they wouldn’t do it sometimes, 
and then father cried. Lately, they very 
often wouldn’t do it, and he used to come 
home despairing. Father’s not like most 


22 


HARD TIMES. 


Those who didn’t know him as well as I do, 
and didn't love him as dearly as I do, might 
believe he was not quite right. Sometimes 
they played tricks upon him ; but they never 
knew how he felt them, and shrunk up, when 
he was alone with me. He was far, far 
timider than they thought !” 

“ And you were his comfort through every- 
thing ?” 

She nodded, with the tears rolling down her 
face. “ I hope so, and father said I was. It 
was because he grew so scared and trembling, 
and because he felt himself to be a poor, 
weak, ignorant, helpless man (those used to 
be his words), that he wanted me so much to 
know a great deal and be different from him. 
I used to read to him to cheer his courage, 
and he was very fond of that. They were 
wrong books — I am never to speak of them 
here — but we didn’t know there was any 
harm in them.” 

“ And he liked them ?” said Louisa, with 
her searching gaze on Sissy all this time. 

“ 0 very much ! They kept him, many 
times, from what did him real harm. And 
often and often of a night, he used to forget 
all his troubles in wondering whether the 
Sultan would let the lady go on with the 
story, or would have her head cut off before 
it was finished.” 

“And your father was always kind? To 
the last ?” asked Louisa ; contravening the 
great principle, and wondering very much. 

“ Always, always !” returned Sissy, clasp- 
ing her hands. “ Kinder and kinder than I 
can tell. He was angry only one night, and 
that was not to me, but Merrylegs. Merry- 
legs ;” she whispered the awful fact ; “ is 
his performing dog.” 

“ Why was he angry with the dog ?” 
Louisa demanded. 

“ Father, soon after they came home, told 
Merrylegs to jump up on the backs of the two 
chairs and stand across them — which is one 
of his tricks. He looked at father, and didn’t 
do it at once. Everything of father’s had 
gone wrong that night, and he hadn’t pleased 
the public at all. He cried out that the very 
dog knew he was failing, and had no com- 
passion on him. Then he beat the dog, and 
I was frightened, and said, ‘ Father, father ! 
Pray don’t hurt the creature who is so fond 
of you ! 0 God forgive you, father, stop !’ 
And he stopped, and the dog was bloody, and 
father lay down crying on the floor with the 
dog in his arms, and the dog licked his face.” 

She turned away her head. Louisa saw 
that she was sobbing ; and going to her, kissed 
her, took her hand, and sat down beside her. 

“ Finish by telling me how your father left 
you, Sissy. Now that I have asked yon so 
much, tell me the end. The blame, if there 
is any blame, is mine : not yours.” 

“Dear Miss Louisa,” said Sissy, covering 
her eyes, and sobbing yet ; “ I came home 
from the school that afternoon, and found 
poor father just come home too, from the 


booth. And he sat rocking himself over the 
fire, as if he was in pain. And I said, ‘ Have 
yoa hurt yourself, father?’ (as he did some- 
times, like they all did), and he said, ‘A 
little, my darling.’ And when I came to stoop 
down and look up at his face, I saw that he 
was crying. The more I spoke to him, the 
more he hid his face ; and at first he shook 
all over, and said nothing but ‘ My darling !’ 
and ‘ My love !’ ” 

Here Tom came lounging in, and stared at 
the two with a coolness not particularly 
savouring of interest in anything but himself, 
and not much of that at present. 

“ I am asking Sissy a few questions, Tom,” 
observed his sister. “ You have no occasion 
to go away ; but don’t interrupt us for a 
moment, Tom dear.” 

“ Oh ! very well !” returned Tom. “ Only 
father has brought old Bounderby home, and 
I want you to come into the drawing-room. 
Because if you come, there’s a good chance of 
old Bounderby’s', asking me to dinner ^ and if 
you don’t, there’s none.” 

“ I’ll come directly.” 

“ I’ll wait for you,” said Tom, “ to make 
sure.” 

Sissy resumed in a lower voice. “ At last 
poor father said that he had given no satisfac- 
tion again, and never did give any satisfac- 
tion now, and that he was a shame and 
disgrace, and I should have done better without 
him all along. I said all the affectionate 
things to him that came into my heart, and 
presently he was quiet, and I sat down by him, 
and told him all about the school and every- 
thing that had been said and done there. 
When I had no more left to tell, he put his 
arms around my neck, and kissed me a great 
many times. Then he asked me to fetch some 
of the stuff he used, for the little hurt he had 
had, and to get it at the best place, which 
was at the other end of town from there 5 and 
then, after kissing me again, he let me go. 
When I had gone down stairs, I turned back 
that I might be a little bit more company to 
him yet, and looked in at the door, and said, 

‘ Father dear, shall I take Merrylegs ?’ 
Father shook his head and said, ‘ No, Sissy, 
no ; take nothing that’s known to be mine, 
my darling ;’ and I left him sitting by the 
fire. Then the thought must have come upon 
him, poor poor father ! of going away to try 
something for my sake ; for when I came back, 
he was gone.” 

“ I say ! Look sharp for old Bounderby, 
Loo!” Tom remonstrated. 

“ There’s no more to tell, Miss Louisa. 
I keep the nine oils ready for him, and I 
know he will come back. Every letter that I 
see in Mr. Gradgrind’s hand takes my breath 
away and blinds my eyes, for I think it comes 
from father, or from Mr. Sleary about father. 
Mr. Sleary promised to write as soon as ever 
father should be heard of, and I trust to him 
to keep his word.” 

“ Do look sharp for old Bounderby, Loo L” 


HARD TIMES. 


23 


said Tom, with an impatient whistle. “ He’ll 
be off, if you don’t look sharp !” 

After this, whenever Sissy dropped a curt- 
sey to Mr. Gradgrind in the presence of his 
family, and said in a faltering way, — “ I beg 
your pardon, sir, for being troublesome — but 
— have you had any letter yet about me?” 
Louisa would suspend the occupation of the 
moment, whatever it was, and look for the 
reply as earnestly as Sissy did. And when 
Mr. Gradgrind regularly answered, “No, 
Jupe, nothing of the sort,” the trembling of 
Sissy’s lip would be repeated in Louisa’s face, 
and her eyes would follow Sissy with com- 
passion to the door. Mr. Gradgrind usually 
improved these occasions by remarking, when 
she was gone, that if Jupe had been properly 
trained from an early age she would have 
demonstrated to herself on sound principles 
the baselessness of these fantastic hopes. 
Yet it did seem (though not to him, for he 
saw nothing of it) as if fantastic hope could 
take as strong a hold as Facts and figures. 

This observation must be limited exclusively 
to his daughter. As to Tom, he was becoming 
that not unprecedented triumph of calcula- 
tion which is usually at work on number one. 
As to Mrs. Gradgrind, if she said anything 
on the subject, she would come a little way 
out of her wrappers like a feminine dormouse, 
and say : 

“Good gracious bless me, how my poor 
head is vexed and worried by that girl Jupe’s 
so perseveringly asking, over and over again, 
about her tiresome letters! Upon my word 
and honour I seem to be fated, and destined, 
and ordained, to live in the midst of things 
that I am never to hear the last of. It really 
is a most extraordinary circumstance that it 
appears as if I never was to hear the last of 
anything!” 

At about this point, Mr. Gradgrind’s eye 
would fall upon her ; and under the influence 
of that wintry piece of fact, she would become 
torpid again. 

chapter x. 

I entertain a weak idea that the English 
people are as hard-worked as any people upon 
whom the sun shines. I acknowledge to this 
ridiculous idiosyncrasy as a reason why I 
would give them a little more play. 

In the hardest working part of Coketown ; in 
the innermost fortifications of that ugly citadel, 
where Nature was as strongly bricked out as 
killing airs and gases were bricked in ; at 
the heart of the labyrinth of narrow courts 
upon courts, and close streets upon streets, 
which had come into existence piecemeal, 
every piece in a violent hurry for some one 
man's purpose, and the whole an unnatural 
family, shouldering, and trampling, and 
pressing one another to death ; in the last 
close nook of this great exhausted receiver, 
where the chimneys, for want of air to make a 
draught, were built in an immense variety of 
stunted and crooked shapes, as though every 


house put out a sign of the kind of people 
who might be expected to be born in it ; 
among the multitude of Coketown, generi- 
cally called “ the Hands,” — a race who would 
have found more favour with' some people, if 
Providence had seen fit to make them only 
hands, or, like the lower creatures of the sea- 
shore, only hands and stomachs — lived a 
certain Stephen Blackpool, forty years of 
age. 

Stephen looked older, but he had had a hard 
life. It is said that every life has its roses and 
thorns ; there seemed, however, to have been 
a misadventure or mistake in Stephen’s 
cast, whereby somebody else had become 
possessed of his roses, and he had become 
possessed of the same somebody else’s thorns 
in addition to his own. He had known, to use 
his words, a peck of trouble. He was usually 
called Old Stephen, in a kind of rough homage 
to the fact. 

A rather stooping man, with a knitted 
brow, a pondering expression of face, and a 
hard-looking head sufficiently capacious, on 
which his iron-grey hair lay long and thin, — 
Old Stephen might have passed for a particu- 
larly intelligent man in his condition. Yet 
he was not. He took no place among those 
remarkable “hands,” who, piecing together 
their broken intervals of leisure through 
many years, had mastered difficult sciences, 
and acquired a knowledge of most unlikely 
things. He held no station among the hands 
who could make speeches and carry on 
debates. Thousands of his compeers could 
talk much better than he, at any time. 
He was a good power-loom weaver, and a 
man of perfect integrity. What more he was, 
or what else he had in him, if anything, let 
him show for himself. 

The lights in the great factories, which 
looked, when they were illuminated, like 
Fairy palaces — or the travellers by ex- 
press-train said so — were all extinguished ; 
and the bells had rung for knocking off for 
the night, and had ceased again ; and the 
hands, men and women, boy and girl, were 
clattering home. Old Stephen was standing 
in the street, with the odd sensation upon him 
which the stoppage of the machinery always 
produced — the sensation of its having worked 
and stopped in his own head. 

“ Yet I don’t see Rachael, still !” said he. 

It was a wet night, and many groups of 
young women passed him, with their shawls 
drawn over their bare heads and held close 
under their chins to keep the rain out. He 
knew Rachael well, for a glance at any one of 
these groups was sufficient to show him that 
she was not there. At last there were no 
more to come ; and then he turned away, 
saying in a tone of disappointment, “Why, 
then, I ha’ missed her !” 

But he had not gone the length of three 
streets, when he saw another of the shawled 
figures in advance of him, at which he looked 
so keenly that perhaps its mere shadow in- 


24 


HARD TIMES. 


distinctly reflected on the wet pavement, if 
he could have seen it without the figure 
itself moving along from lamp to lamp, 
brightening and fading as it went, would have 
been enough to tell him who was there. 
Making his pace at once much quicker and 
much softer, he darted on until he was very 
near this figure, then fell into his former walk, 
and called “ Rachael !” 

She turned, being then in the brightness of 
a lamp ; and raising her hood a little, showed 
a quiet oval face, dark and rather delicate, 
irradiated by a pair of very gentle eyes, and 
further set off by the perfect order of her 
shining black hair. It was not a face in its 
first bloom ; she was a woman five and thirty 
years of age. 

“Ah, lad! It’s thou?” when she had 
said this, with a smile which would have been 
quite expressed, though nothing of her had 
been seen but her pleasant eyes, she replaced 
her hood again, and they went on together. 

“ I thought thou wast ahind me, Rachael?” 

“ No.” 

“ Early t’night, lass ?” 

“ ’Times I’ma little early, Stephen ; ’times 
a little late. I ’m never to be counted on, 
going home.” 

“ Nor in going t’other way, neither, ’t seems 
to me, Rachael?” 

“ No, Stephen.” 

He looked at her with some disappoint- 
ment in his face, but with a respectful and 
patient conviction that she must be right in 
whatever she did. The expression was not 
lost upon her ; she laid her hand lightly 
upon his arm a moment, as if to thank him 
for it. 

“ We are such true friends, lad, and such 
old friends, and getting to be such old folk, 
now.” 

“No, Rachael, thou’rt as yoong as ever 
thou wast.” 

“One of us would be puzzled how to get 
old, Stephen, without t’ other getting so too, 
both being alive,” she answered, laughing ; 
“ but, any ways, we ’re such old friends, that 
t’hide a word of honest truth fra ’one another 
would be a sin and a pity. ’Tis better not to 
walk too much together. ’Times, yes! 
’Twould be hard, indeed, if ’twas not to be at 
all, she said, with a cheerfulness she sought 
to communicate to him. 

“ ’Tis hard, anyways, Rachael.” 

“Try to think not, lad; and ’twill seem 
better.” 

“ I ’ve tried a long time, and ’t a’nt got 
better. But thou’rt right ; ’tmight make 
folk talk, even of thee. Thou hast been that 
to me, Rachael, through so many year : thou 
hast done me so much good, and heartened 
of me in that cheering way : that thy word is 
a law to me. Ah lass, and a bright good 
law ! Better than some real ones.” 

“ Never fret about them, Stephen,” she 
answered quickly, and not without an anxious 
glance at his face. “ Let the laws be.” 


“Yes,” he said, with a slow nod or two. 
“ Let ’em be. Let everything be. Let all 
sorts alone. ’Tis a muddle, and that ’s all.” 

“Always a muddle, lad?”, said Rachael, 
with another gentle touch upon his arm, as if 
to recall him out of the thoughtfulness, in 
which he was biting the long ends of his 
loose neckerchief as he walked along. The 
touch had its instantaneous effect. He let 
them fall, turned a smiling face upon her, and 
said, as he broke into a good-humoured laugh, 
“Ay, Rachael, lass, always a muddle. That’s 
where I stick. I come to the muddle many 
times and agen, and I never get beyond it.” 

They had walked some distance, and were 
near their own homes. The woman's was the 
first reached. It was in one of the many 
small streets for which the favourite under- 
taker (who turned a handsome sum out of 
the one poor ghastly pomp of the neighbour- 
hood) kept a black ladder, in order that those 
who had done their daily groping up and 
down the narrow stairs might slide out of 
this working world by the windows. She 
stopped at the corner, and putting her hand 
in his, wished him good night. 

“ Good night, dear lass ; good night !” 

She went, with her neat figure and her 
sober womanly step, down the dark street, 
and he stood looking after her until she 
turned into one of the small houses. There 
was not a flutter of her coarse shawl, perhaps, 
but had its interest in this man’s eyes ; not a 
tone of her voice but had its echo iu his 
innermost heart. 

When she was lost to his eyes, he pursued 
his homeward way, glancing up sometimes at 
the sky, where the clouds were sailing fast and 
wildly. But they were broken now, and the 
rain had ceased, and the moon shone — look- 
ing down the high chimneys of Coketown on 
the deep furnaces below, and casting Titanic 
shadows of the steam engines at rest, upon 
the walls where they were lodged. The man 
seemed to have brightened with the night, as 
he went on. 

His home, in such another street as the 
first, saving that it was narrower, was over a 
little shop. How it came to pass that any 
people found it worth their while to sell or 
buy the wretched little toys, mixed up in its 
window with cheap newspapers and pork 
(there was a leg to be raffled for to morrow 
night), matters not here. He took his end of 
candle from a shelf, lighted it at another end 
of candle on the counter, without disturbing 
the mistress of the shop who was asleep in 
her little room, and went up stairs into his 
lodging. 

It was a room, not unacquainted with the 
black ladder under various tenants ; but as 
neat, at present, as such a room could be. A 
few books and writings were on an old bureau 
in a corner, the furniture was decent and 
sufficient, and, though the atmosphere was 
tainted, the room was clean. 

Going to the hearth to set the candle down 


HARD TIMES. 


25 


upon a round three-legged table standing 
there, he stumbled upon something. As he 
recoiled, looking down at it, it raised itself 
up into the form of a woman in a sitting 
attitude. 

“ Heaven’s mercy, woman ! ” he cried, fall- 
ing farther off from the figure. “ Hast thou 
come back again!” 

Such a woman! A disabled, drunken 
creature, barely able to preserve the sitting 
posture by steadying herself with one be- 
grimed hand on the floor, while the other 
was so purposeless in trying to push away 
her tangled hair from her face, that it only 
blinded her the more with the dirt upon it. 
A creature so foul to look at, in her tatters, 
stains, and splashes, but so much fouler than 
that in her moral infamy, that it was a shame- 
ful thing even to see her. 

After an impatient oath or two, and some 
stupid clawing of herself with the hand not 
necessary to her support, she got her hair 
away from her eyes sufficiently to obtain a 
sight of him. Then she sat swaying her body 
to and fro, and making gestures with her 
unnerved arm, which seemed intended as the 
accompaniment to a fit of laughter, though 
her face was stolid and drowsy. 

“ Eigh lad? What, yo’r there?” Some 
hoarse sounds meant for this, came mockingly 
out of her at last ; and then her head dropped 
forward on her breast. 

“ Back again ? ” she screeched, after some 
minutes, as if he had that moment said it. 
“Yes! And back again. Back again, ever and 
ever so often. Back ? Yes, back. Why not ?” 

Roused by the unmeaning violence with 
which she cried it out, she scrambled up, and 
stood supporting herself with her shoulders 
against the wall : dangling in one hand by the 
string, a dunghill-fragment of a bonnet, and 
tryiug to look scornfully at him. 

“FU sell thee off again, and I’ll sell thee 
off again, and I’ll sell thee off a score of 
times ! ” she cried, with something between a 
furious menace and an effort at a defiant 
dance. “ Come away from th’ bed !” He was 
sitting on the side of it, with his face hidden 
in his hands. “ Come away from ’t. ’Tis 
mine, and I’ve a right to ’t ! ” 

As she staggered to it, he avoided her with 
a shudder, and passed — his face still hidden — 
to the opposite end of the room. She threw 
herself upon the bed heavily, and soon was 
snoring hard. He sunk in a chair, and moved 
but once all that night. It was to throw a 
covering over her 5 as if his hands were not 
enough to hide her, even in the darkness. 

CHAPTER XI. 

The Fairy palaces, burst out into illumina- 
tion, before pale morning, showed the mon- 
strous serpents of smoke trailing themselves 
over Coketown. A clattering of clogs upon 
the pavement ; a rapid ringing of bells ; and 
all the melancholy mad elephants, polished 


and oiled up for the day’s monotony, were at 
their heavy exercise again. 

Stephen bent over his loom, quiet, watchful, 
and steady. A special contrast, as every man 
was in the forest of looms where Stephen 
worked, to the crashing, smashing, tearing 
piece of mechanism at which he laboured. 
Never fear, good people of an anxious turn of 
mind, that Art will consign Nature to oblivion. 
Set anywhere, side by side, the work of God 
and the work of man ; and the former, even 
though it be a troop of Hands of very small 
account, will gain in solemn dignity from the 
comparison. 

Four hundred and more Hands in this 
Mill ; Two hundred and fifty horse Steam 
Power. It is known, to the force of a single 
pound weight, what the engine will /do ; but, 
not all the calculators of the National Debt 
shall tell me the capacity for good or evil, for 
love or hatred, for patriotism or discontent, 
for the decomposition of virtue into vice, or 
the reverse, at &ny single moment in the soul 
of one of these its quiet servants, with the 
composed faces and the regulated actions. 
There is no mystery in it ; there is an un- 
fathomable mystery in the meanest of them, 
for ever. Supposing we were to reserve our 
arithmetic for material objects, and to govern 
these awful unknown quantities by other 
means ! 

The day grew strong, and showed itself 
outside, even against the flaming lights within. 
The lights were turned out, and the work went 
on. The rain fell, and the Smoke-serpents, 
submissive to the curse of all that tribe, 
trailed themselves upon the earth. In the 
waste-yard outside, the steam from the escape- 
pipe, the litter of barrels and old iron, the 
shining heaps of coals, the ashes everywhere, 
were shrouded in a veil of mist and rain. 

The work went on, until the noon-bell rang. 
More clattering upon the pavements. The 
looms, and wheels, and Hands, all out of gear 
for an hour. 

Stephen came out of the hot mill into the 
damp wind and the cold wet streets, haggard 
and worn. He turned from his own class and 
his own quarter, taking nothing but a little 
bread as he walked along, towards the hill on 
which his principal employer lived, in a red 
house with black outside shutters, green 
inside blinds, a black street door, up two white 
steps, Bounderby (in letters very like him- 
self) upon a brazen plate, and a round brazen 
door-handle underneath it like a brazen 
full-stop. 

Mr. Bounderby was at his lunch. So Ste- 
phen had expected. Would his servant say 
that one of the Hands begged leave to speak 
to him ? Message in return, requiring name 
of such Hand. Stephen Blackpool. There 
was nothing troublesome against Stephen 
Blackpool ; yes, he might come in. 

Stephen Blackpool in the parlour. Mr. 
Bounderby (whom he just knew by sight), 
at lunch on chop and sherry. Mrs. 


26 


HARD TIMES 


Sparsit netting at the fireside, in a side- 
saddle attitude, with one foot in a cotton 
stirrup. It was a part, at once of Mrs. 
Sparsit’s dignity and service, not to lunch. 
She supervised the meal officially, but implied 
that in her own stately person she considered 
lunch a weakness. 

“ Now, Stephen,” said Mr. Bounderby, 
“ what’s the matter with you ?” 

Stephen made a bow. Not a servile one — 
these Hands will never do that ! Lord bless 
you, sir, you’ll never catch them at that, if 
they have been with you twenty years ! — and, 
as a complimentary toilet for Mrs. Sparsit, 
tucked his neckerchief ends into his waist- 
coat. 

“ Now, you know,” said Mr. Bounderby, 
taking some sherry, “ we have never had any 
difficulty with you, and you have never been 
one of the unreasonable ones. You don’t 
expect to be set up in a coach and six, and to 
be fed on turtle-soup and venison, with a gold 
spoon, as a good many of ’em do Mr. 
Bounderby always represented this to be the 
sole, immediate, and direct object of any 
Hand who was not entirely satisfied ; “ and 
therefore I know already that you have not 
come here to make a complaint. Now, you 
know, I am certain of that, beforehand.” 

“No, sir, sure I ha’ not coom for nowt o’ 
th’ kind.” 

Mr. Bounderby seemed agreeably sur- 
prised, notwithstanding his previous strong 
conviction. “Very well,” he returned. 
“ You’re a steady Hand, and I was not mis- 
taken. Now, let me hear what it’s all about. 
As it’s not that, let me hear what it is. 
What have you got to say? Out with it, 
lad!” 

Stephen happened to glance towards Mrs. 
Sparsit. “ I can go, Mr. Bounderby, if you 
wish it,” said that self-sacrificing lady, making 
a feint of taking her foot out of the stirrup. 

Mr. Bounderby stayed her, by holding a 
mouthful of- chop in suspension before swal- 
lowing it, and putting out his left hand. 
Then, withdrawing his hand and swallowing 
his mouthful of chop, he said to Stephen : 

“ Now, you know, this good lady is a born 
lady, a high lady. You are not to suppose 
because she keeps my house for me, that she 
hasn’t been very high up the tree — ah, up 
at the top of the tree ! Now, if you have 
got anything to say that can’t be said before 
a born lady, this lady will leave the room. 
If what you have got to say, can be said 
before a born lady, this lady will stay where 
she is.” 

“ Sir, I hope I never had nowt to say, 
not fitten for a born lady to year, sin’ I were 
born mysen’,” was the reply, accompanied 
with a slight flush. 

“ Very well,” said Mr. Bounderby, pushing 
away his plate, and leaning back. “Fire 
away !” 

“I ha’ coom,” Stephen began, raising his 
eyes from the floor, after a moment’s con- 


sideration, “ to ask yo yor advice. I need ’t 
overmuch. I were married on a Eas’r Monday 
nineteen year sin, long and dree. She were a 
young lass — pretty enow — wi’ good accounts of 
hersen’. Well ! She went bad— soon. Not 
along of me. Gonnows I were not a unkind 
husband to her.” 

“I have heard all this before,” said Mr. 
Bounderby. “ She took to drinking, left off 
working, sold the furniture, pawned the 
clothes, and played old Gooseberry.” 

“ I were patient wi’ her.” 

(“ The more fool you, I think,” said Mr. 
Bounderby, in confidence to his wine-glass.) 

“ I were very patient wi’ her. I tried to 
wean her fra’t, ower and ower agen. I tried 
this, I tried that, I tried t’other. I ha’ gone 
home, many’s the time, and found all vanished 
as I had in the world, and her without a 
sense left to bless hersen’ lying on bare ground. 
I ha’ dun’t not once, not twice — twenty time !” 

Every line in his face deepened as he said 
it, and put in its affecting evidence of the suf- 
fering he had undergone. 

“ From bad to worse, from worse to worsen. 
She left me. She disgraced hersen’ every- 
ways, bitter and bad. She coom back, she 
coom back, she coom back. What could 
I do t’ hinder her? I ha’ walked the 
streets nights long, ere ever I’d go home. 
I ha’ gone t’ th’ brigg, minded to fling 
mysen’ ower, and ha’ no more on ’t. I ha’ 
bore that much, that I were owd when I were 
young.” 

Mrs. Sparsit, easily ambling along with her 
netting-needles, raised the Coriolanian eye- 
brows and shook her head, as much as to say, 
“ The great know trouble as well as the small 
Please to turn your humble eye in My direc- 
tion.” 

“ I ha’ paid her to keep awa, fra’ me. These 
five year I ha’ paidher. I ha’ gotten some decent 
fewtrils about me agen. I ha’ lived hard and 
sad, but not ashamed and fearfo’ a’ the min- 
nits o’ my life. Last night, I went home. 
There she lay upon my harston ! There she 
is!” 

In the strength of his misfortune, and the 
energy of his distress, he fired for the moment 
like a proud man. In another moment, he 
stood as he had stood all the time — his usual 
stoop upon him ; his pondering face addressed 
to Mr. Bounderby, with a curious expression 
on it, half-shrewd, half-perplexed, as if his 
mind were set upon unravelling something 
very difficult ; his hat held tight in his 
left hand, which rested on his hip ; his 
right arm, with a rugged propriety and force 
of action, very earnestly emphasising what he 
said : not least so when it always paused, 
a little bent, but not withdrawn as he paused. 

“ I was acquainted with all this, you know,” 
said Mr. Bounderby, “ except the last clause, 
long ago. It’s a bad job that’s what it is. 
You had better have been satisfied as yon 
were, and not have got married. However, 
it’s too late to say that.” 


/ 


HARD TIMES. 27 


“Was it an unequal marriage, sir, in point 
of years?” asked Mrs. Sparsit. 

“You hear what this lady asks. Was it 
an unequal marriage in point of years, this un- 
lucky job of yours?” said Mr. Bounderby. 

. “ Not e’en so. I were one-and-twenty my- 
sen ’ ; she were twenty nighbut.” 

“ Indeed, sir !” said Mrs. Sparsit to her Chief, 
with great placidity. “I inferred from its 
being so miserable a marriage, that it was 
probably -an unequal one in point of years.” 

Mr. Bounderby looked very hard at the 
good lady in a sidelong way that had an odd 
sheepishness about it. He fortified himself 
with a little more sherry. 

“ Well ? Why don’t you go on ?” he then 
asked, turning rather irritably on Stephen 
Blackpool. 

“ I ha’ coom to ask yo, sir, how I am to 
be ridded o’ this woman.” Stephen infused 
a yet deeper gravity into the mixed expres- 
sion of his attentive face. Mrs. Sparsit 
uttered a gentle ejaculation, as having re- 
ceived a moral shock. 

“What do you mean?” said Bounderby, 
getting up to lean his back against the chim- 
ney-piece. “What are you talking about? 
You took her, for better for worse.” 

“ I mun ’ be ridded o’ her.- I cannot bear’t 
nommore. I ha’ lived under’t so long, for 
that I ha’ had’n the pity and the comforting 
words o’ th’ best lass living or dead. Haply, 
but for her, I should ha’ gone hottering 
mad.” 

“ He wishes to be free to marry the female 
of whom he speaks, I fear, sir,” observed 
Mrs. Sparsit in an under-tone, and much 
dejected by the immorality of the people. 

“ I do. The lady says what’s right. I do. 
I were a coming to’t. I ha’ read i’ th’ papers 
that great folks (fair faw ’em a’ ! I wishes 
’em no hurt!) are not bonded together for 
better for worse so fast, but that they can be 
set free fra’ their misfortnet marriages, and 
marry ower agen. When they dunnot agree, 
for that their tempers is ill-sorted, they have 
rooms of one kind an’ another in their houses, 
above a bit, and they can live asunders. We 
folk ha’ only one room, and we can’t. When 
that won’t do, they lia’ gowd and other cash, 
and they can say ‘This for yo, and that for 
me,’ and they can go their separate ways. 
We can’t. Spite o’ all that, they can be set 
free for smaller wrongs than mine. So, I 
mun be ridded o’ this woman, and I want 
t’ know how? ” 

“No how,” returned Mr. Bounderby. 

“ If I do' her any hurt, sir, there’s a law to 
punish me?” 

“ Of course there is.” 

“ If I flee from her, there’s a law to punish 
me?” 

“ Of course there is.” 

“ If I marry t’other dear lass, there’s a law 
to punish m£ ?” 

“ 01 course there is.” 

“ If I was to live wi’ her an’ not marry 


her — saying such a thing could be, which it 
never could or would, an’ her so good — 
there’s a law to punish me, in every innocent 
child belonging to me ? ” 

“ Of course there is.” 

“Now, a’ God’s name,” said Stephen Black- 
pool, “ show me the law to help me ! ” 

“ Hem ! There’s a sanctity in this relation 
of life,” said Mr. Bounderby, “and — and — • 
it must be kept up.” 

“ No no, dunnot say that, sir. ’Tan’t kep’ 
up that way. Not that way. ’Tis kep’ 
down that way. I’m a weaver, I were in a 
factory when a chilt, but I ha’ gotten een to 
see wi’ and eern to year wi’. I read in th’ 
papers every ’Sizes, every Sessions — and you 
read too — I know it ! — with dismay— how th’ 
supposed unpossibility o’ ever getting un- 
chained from one another at any price, on any 
terms, brings blood upon this land, and brings 
many common married folk to battle, muruer, 
and sudden death. Let us ha’ this, right 
understood. Mine’s a grievous case, an’ I 
want — if you will be so good — t’ know the law 
that helps me.” 

“Now, I tell you what!” said Mr. Boun- 
derby, putting his hands in his pockets. 
“ There is such a law.” 

Stephen, subsiding into his quiet manner, and 
never wandering in his attention, gave a nod. 

“But it’s not for you at all. It costs 
money. It costs a mint of money.” 

“ How much might that be : ” Stephen 
calmly asked. 

“ Why, you’d have to go to Doctors’ Com- 
mons with a suit, and you’d have to go to a 
court of Common Law with a suit, and you’d 
have to go to the House of Lords with a suit, 
and you’d have to get an Act of Parliament 
to enable you to marry again, and it would 
cost you (if it was a case of very plain-sailing), 
I suppose from a thousand to fifteen hundred 
pound,” said Mr. Bounderby. “ Perhaps twice 
the money.” 

“ There’s no other law ? ” 

“ Certainly not.’ 

“Why then, sir,” said Stephen, turning 
white, and motioning with that right hand of 
his, as if he gave everything to the four winds, 
“ ’tis a muddle. ’Tis just a muddle a’ together, 
an’ the sooner I am dead, the better.” 

(Mrs. Sparsit again dejected by the impiety 
of the people.) 

“Pooh, pooh! Don’t you talk nonsense, 
my good fellow,” said Mr. Bounderby, 
“ about things you don’t understand ; and 
don’t you call the Institutions of your country 
a muddle, or you’ll get yourself into a real 
muddle one of these fine mornings. The in- 
stitutions of your country are not your piece- 
work, and the only thing you have got to do, 
is, to mind your piece-work. You didn’t take 
your wife for fast and for loose ; but for 
better for worse. If she has turned out 
worse — why, all we have got to say is, she 
might have turned out better.” 

“ ’Tis a muddle,” said Stephen, shaking hia 


28 


HARD TIMES. 


head as he moved to the door. “ ’Tis a’ a 
muddle ! ” 

‘•Now, I’ll tell you what! ” Mr. Bounderby 
resumed, as a valedictory address. “ With 
what I shall call your unhallowed opinions, 
you have been quite shocking this lady : who, 
as I have already fold you is a born lady, 
and who, as I have not already told you, has 
had her own marriage misfortunes to the 
tune of tens of thousands of pounds — tens of 
Thou-sands of Pounds!” (he repeated it with 
great relish). “ Now, you have always been 
a steady Hand hitherto ; but my opinion is, 
and so I tell you plainly, that you are turn- 
ing into the wrong road. You have been 
listening to some mischievous stranger or 
other — they’re always about — and the best 
thing you can do is, to come out of that. Now 
you know ;” here his countenance expressed 
marvellous acuteness ; “ I can see as far into a 
grindstone as another man ; farther than a 
good many, perhaps, because I had my nose 
well kept to it when I was young. I see 
traces of the turtle soup, and venison, and 
gold spoon in this. Yes, I do!” cried Mr. 
Bounderby, shaking his head with obstinate 
cunning. “ By the Lord Harry, I do !” 

. With a very different shake of the head 
and a deep sigh, Stephen said, “ Thank you, 
sir, I wish you good day.” So he left Mr. 
Bounderby swelling at his own portrait on the 
wall, as if he were going to explode himself 
into it ; and Mrs. Sparsit still ambling on with 
her foot in her stirrup, looking quite cast 
down by the popular vices. 

CHAPTER XII. 

Old Stephen descended the two white steps, 
shutting the black door with the brazen door- 
plate, by the aid of the brazen full-stop, to 
which he gave a parting polish with the sleeve 
of his coat, observing that his hot hand 
clouded it. He crossed the street with his 
eyes bent upon the ground, and thus was 
walking sorrowfully away, when he felt a 
touch upon his arm. 

It was not the touch he needed most at 
such a moment — the touch that could calm the 
wild waters of his soul, as the uplifted hand 
of the sublimest love and patience could abate 
the raging of the sea— yet it was a woman’s 
hand too. It was an old woman, tall and 
shapely, still, though withered by Time, on 
whom his eyes fell when he stopped and turned. 
She was very cleanly and plainly dressed, 
had country mud upon her shoes, and was 
newly come from a journey. The flutter of 
her manner, in the unwonted noise of the 
streets ; the spare shawl, carried unfolded on 
her arm ; the heavy umbrella, and little 
basket 5 the loose long-fingered gloves, to which 
her hands were unused; all bespoke an old 
woman from the country, in her plain holiday 
clothes, come into Coketown on an expedition 
of rare occurrence. Remarking this at a 
glance,' with the quick observation of his class, 
Stephen Blackpool bent his attentive face— ^ 


his face, which, like the faces of many of his 
order, by dint of long working with eyes and 
hands in the midst of a prodigious noise, had 
acquired the concentrated look with which we 
are familiar in the countenances of the deaf — 
the better to hear what she asked him. 

“Pray, sir,” said the old woman, “didn’t 
I see you come out of that gentleman’s house?” 
pointing back to Mr. Bounderby ’s. “ I believe 
it was you, unless I have had the bad luck to 
mistake the person in following?” . 

“Yes, missus,” returned Stephen, “it were 
me.” 

“ Have you — you’ll excuse an old woman’s 
curiosity — have you seen the gentleman ?” 

“Yes, missus.” 

“And how did he look, sir? Was he 
portly, bold, outspoken, and hearty ?” As 
she straightened her own figurej and held up 
her head in adapting her action to her words, 
the idea crossed Stephen that he had seen this 
old woman before, and had not quite liked her. 

“ 0 yes,” he returned, observing her more 
attentively, “ he were all that.” 

“And healthy,” said the old woman, “as 
the fresh wind ?” 

“Yes,” returned Stephen. “He were 
ett’n and drinking — as large and as loud as a 
Hummobee.” 

“ Thank you !” said the old woman with 
infinite content. “ Thank you!” 

He certainly never had seen this old woman 
before. Yet there was a vague remembrance 
in his mind, as if he had more than once 
dreamed of some old woman like her. 

She walked along at his side, and, gently 
accommodating himself to her humour, he said 
Coketown was a busy place, was it not ? To 
which she answered “Eigh sure! Dreadful 
busy!” Then he said, she came from the 
country, he saw? To which she answered in 
the affirmative. 

“By Parliamentary, this morning. I came 
forty mile by Parliamentary this morning, 
and I’m going back the same forty mile this 
afternoon. I walked nine mpe to the station 
this morning, and if I find nobody on the road 
to give me a lift, I shall walk the nine mile 
back to night. That’s pretty well, sir, at my 
age!” said the chatty old woman, her eye 
brightening with exultation. 

“ ’Deed’ tis. Don’t do’t too often, missus.” 

“No, no. Once a year,” she answered, 
shaking her head. “ I spend my savings so, 
once every year. I come regular, to tramp 
about the streets, and see the gentlemen.” 

“ Only to see ’em ?” returned Stephen. 

“ That’s enough for me,” she replied, with 
great earnestness and interest of manner. 

“ I ask no more ! I have been standing 
about, on this side of the way, to see that 
gentleman,” turning her head back towards 
Mr. Bounderby’s again, “ come out. But, he’s 
late this year, and I have not seen him. 
You came out, instead. Now, if I am obliged 
to go back without a glimpse of him — I 
only want a glimpse — well ! I have seen you, 


HARD TIMES. 


29 


and yon have seen him, and I must make 
that do.” Saying this, she looked at Stephen 
as if to fix his features in her mind, and her 
eye was not so bright as it.had been. 

With a large allowance for difference of 
tastes, and with all submission to the pa- 
tricians of Coketown, this seemed so extra- 
ordiuary a source of interest to take so 
much trouble about, that it perplexed him. 
But they were passing the church now, and as 
his eye caught the clock, he quickened his pace. 

He was going to his work, the old 
woman said, quickening hers, too, quite 
easily. Yes, time was nearly out. On his 
telling her where he worked, the old woman 
became a more singular old woman than 
before. 

“ An’t you happy ?” she asked him. 

“ Why — there’s — awmost nobbody but has 
their troubles, missus.” He answered eva- 
sively, because the old woman appeared to 
take it for granted that he would be very 
happy indeed, and he had not the heart to 
disappoint her. He knew that there was 
trouble enough in the world ; and if the old 
woman had lived so long, and could count 
upon his having so little, why so much the 
better for her, and none the worse for him. 

“ Ay, ay ! You have your troubles at 
home, you mean ?” she said. 

“ Times. Just now and then,” he answered 
slightly. 

“ But, working under such a gentleman, 
they don’t follow you to the Factory ?” 

No, no, they didn’t follow him there, said 
Stephen. All correct there. Everything ac- 
cordant there. (He did not go so far as to 
say, for her pleasure, that there was a sort 
of Divine Right there ; but, I have heard 
claims almost as magnificent of late years.) 

They were now in the black bye-road near 
the place, and the Hands were crowding in. 
The bell was ringing, and the Serpent was a 
Serpent of many coils, and the Elephant was 
getting ready. The strange old woman was 
delighted with the very bell. It was the 
beautifullest bell she had ever heard, she 
said, and sounded grand ! 

She asked him, when he stopped good- 
naturedly to shake hands with her before 
going in, how long he had worked there ? 

“ A dozen year,” he told her. 

“ I must kiss the hand,” said she, “ that 
has worked in this fine factory for a dozen 
year !” And she lifted it, though he would 
have prevented her, and put it to her lips. 
What harmony, besides her age and her 
simplicity, surrounded her, he did not know, 
but even in this fantastic action thore was 
a something neither out of time nor place : 
a something which it seemed as if nobody 
else could have made as serious, or done 
with such a natural and touching air. 

He had been at his loom full half an 
hour, thinking about this old woman, when, 
having occasion to move round the loom 
for its adjustment, he glanced through a win- 


dow which was in his corner, and saw her 
still looking up at the pile of building, lost 
in admiration. Heedless of the smoke and 
mud and wet, and of her two long journeys, 
she was gazing at it, as if the heavy thrum 
that issued from its many stories were proud 
music to her. 

She was gone by and by, and the day went 
after her, and the lights sprung up again, and 
the Express whirled in full sight of the Fairy 
Palace over the arches near : little felt amid 
the jarring of the machinery, and scarcely 
heard above its crash and rattle. Long 
before then, his thoughts had gone back to 
the dreary room above the little shop, and to 
the shameful figure heavy on the bed, but 
heavier on his heart. 

Machinery slackened ; throbbing feebly like 
a fainting pulse ; stopped. The bell again ; 
the glare of light and heat dispelled ; the 
factories, looming heavy in the black wet night ; 
their tall chimneys rising up into the air like 
competing Towers of Babel. 

He had spoken to Rachael only last night, 
it was true, and had walked with her a little 
way ; but, he had his new misfortune on him 
in which no one else could give him a 
moment’s relief, and, for the sake of it, and 
because he knew himself to want that soften- 
ing of his anger which no voice but hers 
could effect, he felt he might so far disregard 
what she had said as to wait for her again. 
He waited, but she had eluded him. She 
was gone. On no other night in the year, 
could he so ill have spared her patient face. 

0 ! Better to have no home in which to 
lay his head, than to have a home and dread 
to go to it, through such a cause. He ate 
and drank, for he was exhausted — but, he 
little knew or cared what ; and he wandered 
about in the chill rain, thinking and thinking, 
and brooding and brooding. 

No word of a new marriage had ever 
passed between them ; but Rachael had taken 
great pity on him years ago, and to her 
alone he had opened his closed heart all this 
time, on the subject of his miseries ; and he 
knew very well that if he were free to ask 
her, she would take him. He thought of the 
home he might at that moment have been 
seeking with pleasure and pride ; of the 
different man he might have been that night ; 
of the lightness then in his now heavy-laden 
breast ; of the then restored honor, self- 
respect, and tranquillity, now all tom to 
pieces. He thought of the waste of the best 
part of his life, of the change it made in his 
character for the worse every way, of the 
dreadful nature of his existence, bound hand 
and foot to a dead woman, and tormented by 
a demon in her shape. He thought of 
Rachael, how young when they were first 
brought together in these circumstances, how 
mature now, how soon to grow old. He 
thought of the number of girls and women 
she had seen marry, how many homes* with 
children in them she had seen grow up 


30 


HARD TIMES. 


around her, how she had contentedly pursued 
her own lone quiet path — for him — and how 
he had sometimes seen a shade of melancholy 
on her blessed face, that smote him with 
remorse and despair. He set the picture of her 
up, beside the infamous image of last night ; 
and thought, Could it be, that the whole earth- 
ly course of one so gentle, good, and self-deny- 
ing, was subjugate to such a wretch as that! 

Filled with these thoughts — so filled that 
he had an unwholesome sense of growing 
larger, of being placed in some new and 
diseased relation towards the objects among 
which he passed, of seeing the iris round 
every misty light turn red — he went home 
for shelter. 

chapter xm. 

A candle faintly burned in the window 
to which the black ladder had often been 
raised for the sliding away of all that was 
most precious in this world to a striving wife 
and a brood of hungry babies ; and he added 
to his other thoughts the stern reflection that 
of all the casualties of this existence upon 
earth, not one was dealt out with so unequal 
a hand as Death. The inequality of Birth 
was nothing to it. For, say that the child of 
a King and the child of a Weaver were born 
to-night in the same moment, what was that 
disparity to the death of any human creature 
who was serviceable to, or beloved by, 
another ? Still this abandoned woman lived on ! 

From the outside of his home he gloomily 
passed to the inside, with suspended breath 
and with a slow footstep. He went up to his 
door, opened it, and so into the room. 

Quiet and peace were there. Rachael was 
there, sitting by the bed. 

She turned her head, and the light of her 
face shone in upon the midnight of his mind. 
She sat by the bed, watching and tending his 
wife. That is to say. he saw that some one 
lay there, and he knew too well it must be 
she ; but RachaeFs hands had put a curtain 
up, so that she was screened from his eyes. 
Her disgraceful garments were removed, and 
some of RachaeFs were in the room. Every- 
thing was in its place and order as he had 
always kept it, the little fire was neatly 
trimmed, and the hearth was freshly swept. 
It appeared to him that he saw all this in 
RachaeFs face, and looked at nothing besides. 
While looking at it, it was shut out from his 
view by the softened tears that filled his 
eyes ; but not before he had seen how earnestly 
she looked at him, and how her own eyes 
were filled too. 

She turned again towards the bed, and 
satisfying herself that all was quiet there, 
spoke in a low, calm, cheerful voice. 

“ I am glad you have come at last, Stephen, 
You are very late.” 

“ I ha’ been walking up an’ down.” 

“ I thought so. But ’tis too bad a night 
for That. The rain falls very heavy, and the 
wind has risen.” 


The wind? True. It was blowing hard* 
Hark to the thundering in the chimney, 
and the surging noise ! To have been out in 
such a wind and npt know it was blowing ! 

“ I have been here once before, to-day, 
Stephen. Landlady came round for me at 
dinner-time. There was some one here that 
needed looking to she said. And ’deed she 
was right. All -wandering and lost, Stephen. 
Wounded too, and bruised.” 

He slowly moved to a chair and sat down, 
bowing his head before her. 

“ I came to do what little I could; Stephen ; 
first, for that she worked with me when we 
were girls both, and for that you courted her 
and married her when I was her friend — ” 

He laid his furrowed forehead on his hand 
with a low groan. 

“ And next, for that I know your heart, 
and am right sure and certain that ’tis far 
too merciful to let her die, or even so much 
as suffer, for w r ant of aid. Thou knowest 
who said, ‘ Let him who is without sin among 
you, cast the first stone at her !’ There have 
been plenty to do that. Thou art not the 
man to cast the last stone, Stephen, when she 
is brought so low.” 

“ 0 Rachael, Rachael !” 

“ Thou hast been a cruel sufferer. Heaven 
reward thee !” she said, in passionate accents. 
“ I am thy poor friend with all my heart and 
mind.” 

The wounds of which she had spoken, 
seemed to be about the neck of the self-made 
outcast. She dressed them now, still without 
showing her. She steeped a piece of linen in 
a basin, into which she poured some liquid 
from a bottle, and laid it with a gentle hand 
upon the sore. The three-legged table had 
been drawn close to the bedside, and on it 
there were two bottles. This was one. 

It was not so far off, but that Stephen, 
following her hands with his eyes, could read 
what was printed on it, in large letters. He 
turned of a deadly hue, and a sudden horror 
seemed to fall upon him. 

“ I will stay here, Stephen,” said Rachael, 
quietly resuming her seat, “ till the bells go 
Three. ’Tis to be done again at three, and 
then she may be left till morning.” 

“ But thy rest agen to-morrow’s work, my 
dear.” 

“ I slept sound last night I can wake 
many nights when I am put to it. ’Tis thou 
who art in need of rest— so white and tired. 
Try to sleep in the chair there, while I watch. 
Thou hadst no sleep last night, I can well 
believe. To-morrow’s work is far harder for 
thee than for me.” 

He heard the thundering and surging out 
of doors, and it seemed to him as if his late 
angry words were going about trying to get 
at him. She had cast it out ; she would 
keep it out ; he trusted to her to defend him 
from himself. 

“ She don’t know me, Stephen ; she just 
drowsily mutters and stares. I have spoken 


HARD TIMES. 


31 


to her times and again, hut she don’t notice ! 
’Tis as well so. When she comes to her 
right mind once more, I shall have done what 
I can, and she never the wiser.” 

“ How long, Rachael, is’t looked for, that 
she’ll be so ?” 

“ Doctor said she would haply come to 
her mind to-morrow.” 

His eyes again fell on the bottle, and a 
tremble passed over him, causing him to 
shiver in every limb. She thought he was 
chilled with the wet. “ No,” he said 5 “ it 
was not that. He had had a fright.” 

“ A fright !” 

“ Ay, ay ! coming in. When I were walk- 
ing. When I were thinking. When 1 — ” 
It seized him again, and he stood up, 
holding by the mantel-shelf, as he pressed 
his dank cold hair down with a hand that 
shook as if it were palsied. 

“ Stephen l” 

She was coming to him, but he stretched 
out his arm to stop her. 

“ No ! Don’t please ; don’t ! Let me see 
thee setten by the bed. Let me see thee, 
a’ so good, and so forgiving. Let me see thee 
as I see thee when I come in. I can never 
see thee better than so. Never, never, 
never !” 

He had a violent fit of trembling, and then 
sunk into his chair. After a time he con- 
trouled himself, and, resting with an elbow 
on one knee, and his head upon that hand, 
could look towards Rachael. Seen across 
the dim candle with his moistened eyes, she 
looked as if she had a glory shining round 
her head. He could have believed she had. 
He did believe it, as the noise without shook 
the window, rattled at the door below, 
and went about the house clamouring and 
lamenting. 

“ When she gets better, Stephen, ’tis to be 
hoped she’ll leave thee to thyself again, and 
do thee no more hurt. Anyways we will hope 
so now. And now I shall keep silence, for I 
want thee to sleep.” 

He closed his eyes, more to please her than 
to rest his weary head ; but by slow degrees 
as he listened to the great noise of the wind, 
lie ceased to hear it, or it changed into the 
working of his loom, or even into the voices 
of the day (his own included) saying what 
had been really said. Even this imperfect 
consciousness faded away at last, and he 
dreamed a long, troubled dream. 

He thought that he and some one on whom 
his heart had long been set — but she was not 
Rachael, and that surprised him, even in the 
midst of his imaginary happiness— stood in 
the church being married. While the cere- 
mony was performing, and while he recog- 
nised among the company some whom he 
knew to be living, and many whom he knew 
to be dead, darkness came on, succeeded by 
the shining of a tremendous light. It broke 
from one line in the table of commandments 
at the altar, and illuminated the building with 


the words. They were sounded through the 
church too, as if there were voices in the fiery 
letters. Upon this, the whole appearance 
before him and around him changed, and 
nothing was left as it had been but himself 
and the clergyman. They stood in the day- 
light before a crowd so vast that if all the 
people in the world could have been brought 
together into one space, they would not have 
looked, he thought, more numerous ; and 
they all abhorred him, and there was not one 
pitying or friendly eye among the millions 
that were fastened on his face. He stood on 
a raised stage, under his own loom ; and look- 
ing up at the shape the loom took, and hear- 
ing the burial service distinctly read, he knew 
that he was there to suffer death. In an 
instant what he stood on fell below him, and 
he was gone. 

Out of what mystery he came back to his 
usual life and to places that he knew, he was 
unable to consider ; but he was back in those 
places by some means, and with this condem- 
nation upon him, that he was never, in this 
world or the next, through all the unimaginable 
ages of eternity, to look on Rachael’s face or 
hear her voice. Wandering to and fro, un- 
ceasingly, without hope, and in search of he 
knew not what (he only knew that he was 
bound to seek it) he was the subject of a 
nameless, horrible dread, a mortal fear of one 
particular shape which everything took. 
Whatsoever he looked at, grew into that form 
sooner or later. The object of his miserable 
existence was to prevent its recognition by 
any one among the various people he en- 
countered. Hopeless labor ! If he led them 
out of rooms where it was, if he shut up 
drawers and closets where it stood, if he 
drew the curious from places where he knew 
it to be secreted, and got them out into the 
streets, the very chimneys of the mills assumed 
that shape, and round them was the printed 
word. 

The wind was blowing again, the rain was 
beating on the housetops, and the larger 
spaces through which he had strayed con- 
tracted to the four walls of his room. Seeing 
that the fire had died out, it was as his eyes 
had closed upon it. Rachael seemed to have 
fallen into a doze, in the chair by the bed. 
She sat wrapped in her shawl, perfectly still. 
The table stood in the same place, close by 
the bedside, and on it, in its real proportions 
and appearance, was the shape so often re- 
peated — the bottle with the cautionary word, 
Poison. 

He thought he saw the curtain move. He 
looked again, and was sure that ii moved. 
He saw a hand come forth, and grope about 
a little. Then the curtain moved more per- 
ceptibly, and she put it back, and sat up in 
bed. 

With her woful eyes, so haggard and wilA so 
heavy and large, she looked all round the 
room, and passed the corner where he slept in 
his chair. Her eyes returned to that corner, 


32 


HARD TIMES. 


and she put her hand over them as a shade, 
while she looked into it. Again they went 
all round the room, scarcely heeding Rachael 
if at all, and returned to that corner. He 
thought, as she once more shaded them — not 
so much looking at him, as looking for him 
with a brutish instinct that he might be, or 
was there — that no single trace was left in 
those debauched features, or in the mind 
that went along with them, of the woman he 
had married eighteen years before. But 
that he had seen her come to this by inches, 
he never could have believed her to be the 
same. 

All this time, as if a spell were on him, he 
was motionless and powerless, except to 
watch her. 

Stupidly dozing, or communing with her 
incapable self about nothing, she sat for a 
little while with her hands at her ears, and 
her head resting on them. Presently she re- 
sumed her staring round the room. And 
now, for the first time, her eyes stopped at 
the table with the bottles on it. 

Straightway she turned her eyes back to 
his corner, with the defiance of last night, 
and, moving very cautiously and softly, 
stretched out her greedy hand. She drew a 
mug into the bed, and sat for a while con- 
sidering which of the two bottles she should 
take. Finally, she laid her insensate grasp 
upon the bottle that had swift and certain 
death in it, and, before his eyes, pulled out 
the cork with her teeth. 

Dream or reality, he had no voice, nor had 
he power to stir. If this be real, and her 
allotted time be not yet come, wake, Rachael, 
wake ! 

She thought of that too. She looked at 
Rachael, and very slowly, very cautiously, 
poured out the contents. The draught was 
at her lips. A moment and she was passed all 
help, let the whole world wake and come 
about her with its utmost power. But in 
that moment Rachael started up with a sup- 
pressed cry. The creature struggled, struck 
her, seized her by the hair, but Rachael had 
the cup. 

Stephen burst out of his chair. “ Rachael 
am I wakkin’ or dreamin’ this dreadful 
night !” 

“ ’Tis all well, Stephen. I have been asleep 
myself. ’Tis near three. Hush ! I hear the 
. bells.” 

The wind brought the sounds of the church 
clock to the window. They listened, and it 
struck three. Stephen looked at her, saw 
how pale she was, noted the disorder of her 
hair, and the red mark of fingers on her fore- 
head, and felt assured that his senses of sight 
and hearing had been awake. She held the 
cup in her hand even now. 

“I thought it must be near three,” she 
said, calmly pouring from the cup into the 
basin, and steeping the linen as before. “ I 
am thankful I stayed ! ’Tis done now, when I 
have put this on. There ! And now she’s 


quiet again. The few drops in the basin I’ll 
pour away, for ’tis bad stuff to leave about, 
though ever so little of it.” As she spoke she 
drained the basin into the ashes of the fire, 
and broke the bottle on the hearth. 

She had nothing to do then but to cover 
herself with her shawl before going out into 
the wind and rain. 

“ Thou’lt let me walk wi’ thee at this hour, 
Rachael ?” 

“No, Stephen. ’Tis but a minute and I’m 
home.” 

“ Thou’rt not afeerd” — he said it in a low 
voice, as they went out at the door — “ to leave 
me alone wi’ her !” 

As she looked at him, saying “ Stephen ?” 
he went down on his knee before her, on the 
poor main stairs, and put an end of her shawl 
to his lips. 

“Thou art an Angel. Bless thee, bless 
thee !” 

“ I am as I have told thee, Stephen, thy 
poor friend. Angels are not like me. Be- 
tween them and a working woman fu’ of 
faults, there is a deep gulf set. My little 
sister is among them, but she is changed.” 

She raised her eyes for a moment as she 
said the words ; and then they fell again in 
all their gentleness and mildness on his 
face. 

‘‘ Thou changest me from bad to good. 
Thou mak’st me humbly wishfu’ to be more 
like thee, and fearfu’ to lose thee when this 
life is ower, an’ a’ the muddle cleared awa’. 
Thou’st spokken o’ thy little sisther. There 
agen! Wi’ her child arm tore off afore thy 
face !” 

She turned her head aside, and put her 
hand up to her eyes. 

“ Where dost thou ever hear or read o’ us — 
the like o’ us— as being otherwise than onrea- 
sonable and cause o’ trouble ? Yet think o’ 
that. Government gentlemen comes down and 
mak’s report. Flud off the dangerous ma- 
chinery, box it off, save life and limb ; don’t 
rend and tear human creatures to bits in a 
Chris’en country! What follers? Owners 
sets up their throats, cries out, “ Onreason- 
able ! Inconvenient ! Troublesome !’ Gets 
to Secretaries o’ States wi’ deputations, and 
nothing’s done. When do we get there wi’ 
our deputations, God help us! We are too 
much int’rested and nat’rally too far wrong 
t’ have a right judgment. Haply we are : 
but what are they then? I’ th’ name o’ th’ 
muddle in which we are born and live and 
die, what are they then ?” 

“ Let such things be, Stephen. They only 
lead to hurt ; let them be !” 

“ I will, since thou tell’st me so. I will. I 
pass my promise. Thou’rt an angel ; it may 
be, thou hast saved my soul alive !” 

She looked at him, on his knee at her feet, 
with her shawl still in his hand, and the 
reproof on her lips died away when she saw 
the working of his face. 

“I cam’ home desp’rate. I cam’ home 


HARD TIMES. 


32 


wi’out a hope, and mad at thinking that when 
I said a word o’ complaint, I was reckoned a 
onreasonable Hand. I told thee I had had a 
fright. It were the bottle on table. I never 
hurt a livin’ creetur ; but happenin’ so sud- 
denly upon’t, I thought, ‘ How can I say 
what I might ha’ done to mysen, or her, or 
both.’ ” 

She put her two hands on his mouth, with 
a face of terror, to stop him from saying 
more. He caught them in his unoccupied 
hand, and holding them, and still clasping 
the border of her shawl, said, hurriedly : 

“But I see thee, Rachael, setten by the 
bed. I ha’ seen thee all this night. In my 
troublous sleep I ha’ known thee still to be 
tnere. Evermore I will see thee there. I 
nevermore will see her or think o’ her, but 
thou shalt be beside her. I nevermore will 
see or think o’ anything that angers me, but 
thou, so much better than me, shalt be by th’ 
side on’t. And so I will try t’ look t’ th’ 
time, and so I will try t’ trust t’ th’ time, 
when thou and me at last shall walk together 
far awa’ beyond the deep gulf in th’ country 
where thy little sister is.” 

He kissed the border of her shawl again, 
and let her go. She bade him good night in 
a broken voice, and went out into the street. 

The wind blew from the quarter where the 
day would soon appear, and still blew 
strongly. It had cleared the sky before it, 
and the rain had spent itself or travelled 
elsewhere, and the stars were bright. He 
stood bare-headed in the road, watching her 
quick disappearance. As the shining stars 
were to the heavy candle in the window, so 
was Rachael in the rugged fancy of this man to 
the common experiences of his life. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Time went on in Coketown like its own 
machinery : so much material wrought up, 
so much fuel consumed, so many powers worn 
out, so much money made. But, less inexor- 
able than iron, steel, and brass, it brought its 
varying seasons even into that wilderness 
at' smoke and brick, and made the only stand 
that ever was made in the place against its 
direful uniformity. 

“ Louisa is becoming,” said Mr. Gradgrind, 
“ almost a young woman.” 

Time, with his innumerable horse-power, 
worked away, not minding what anybody 
said, and presently turned out young Thomas 
a foot taller than when his father had last 
taken particular notice of him. 

“ Thomas is becoming,” said Mr. Gradgrind, 
“ almost a young man.” 

Time passed Thomas on in the mill, while 
his father was thinking about it, and there 
he stood in a long tail-coat and a stiff shirt- 
collar. 

“ Really,” said Mr. Gradgrind, “ the period 
has arrived when Thomas ought to go to 
Bounderby.” 


Time, sticking to him, passed him on into 
Bounderby ’s Bank, made him an inmate in 
Bounderby’s house, necessitated the purchase 
of his first razor, and exercised him diligently 
in his calculations relative to number one. 

The same great manufacturer, always with 
an immense variety of work on hand, in every 
stage of development, passed Sissy onward 
in his mill, and worked her up into a very 
pretty article indeed. 

“I fear, Jupe,” said Mr. Gradgrind, “ that 
your continuance at school any longer, would 
be useless.” 

“ I am afraid it would, sir,” Sissy answered 
with a curtsey. 

“I cannot disguise from you, Jupe,” said 
Mr. Gradgrind, knitting his brow, “ that 
the result of your probation there has 
disappointed me ; has greatly disappointed 
me. You have not acquired, under Mr. 
and Mrs. M‘Choakumchild, anything like 
that amount of exact knowledge which 
I looked for. You are extremely deficient 
in your facts. Your acquaintance with 
figures is very limited. You are altogether 
backward and below the mark.” 

“I am sorry, sir,” she returned; “but I 
know it is quite true. Yet I have tried hard, 
sir.” 

“Yes,” said Mr. Gradgrind, “yes, I believe 
you have tried hard ; I have observed you, 
and I can find no fault in that respect.” 

“ Thank you, sir. I have thought some- 
times” — Sissy very timid here — “that per- 
haps I tried to learn too much, and that if I 
had asked to be allowed to try a little less, I 
might have — ” 

“No, Jupe, no,” said Mr. Gradgrind, shak- 
ing his head in his profoundest and most 
eminently practical way. “No. The course 
you pursued, you pursued according to the 
system — the system — and there is no more to 
be said about it. Your natural capacity is 
not a bad one. I can only suppose that the 
circumstances of your early life were too un- 
favourable to the development of your reason- 
ing powers, and that we began too late. Still, 
as I have said already, I am disappointed.” 

“I wish I could have made a better ac- 
knowledgment, sir, of your kindness to a 
poor forlorn girl who had no claim upon you, 
and of your protection of her.” 

“Don’t shed tears,” said Mr. Gradgrind. 
“ Don’t shed tears. I don’t complain of you. 
You are an affectionate, earnest, good, young 
woman, and — and we must make that do.” 

“ Thank you, sir, very much,” said Sissy, 
with a grateful curtsey. 

“ You are useful to Mrs. Gradgrind, and (in a 
generally pervading way) you are serviceable 
in the family also ; so I understand from Miss 
Louisa, and, indeed, so I have observed myself. 
I therefore hope,” said Mr. Gradgrind, “ that 
you can make yourself happy in those rela- 
tions.” 

“I should have nothing to wish, sir, if-—” 

“ I understand you,” said Mr. Gradgrind ; 


34 


HARD TIMES. 


il you still refer to your father. I have heard 
from Miss Louisa that you still preserve that 
bottle. Well! If your training in the 
sciences of arriving at exact results had been 
more successful, you would have been wiser 
on these points. I will say no more.” 

He really liked Sissy too well to have a 
contempt for her ; otherwise he held her 
calculating powers in such very slight estima- 
tion, that he must have fallen upon that 
conclusion. Somehow or other he had be- 
come possessed by an idea that there was 
something in this girl which could hardly be 
set forth in a tabular form. Her capacity of 
definition might be easily stated at a very 
low figure, her mathematical knowledge at 
nothiug ; yet he was not sure that if he had 
been required, for example, to tick her off 
into columns in a parliamentary return, he 
would have quite known how to divide her. 

In some stages of his manufacture of the 
human fabric, the processes of Time are very 
rapid. Young Thomas and Sissy being both 
at such a stage of their working up, these 
changes were effected in a year or two, while 
Mr. Gradgrind himself seemed stationary in 
his course, and underwent no alteration. 

Except one, which w*as apart from his ne- 
cessary progress through the mill. Time hus- 
tled him through a little noisy and rather 
dirty machinery, in a bye corner, and made 
him Member of Parliament for Coketown, 
one of the respected members for ounce weights 
and measures, one of the representatives of 
the multiplication table, one of the deaf 
honorable gentlemen, dumb honorable gen- 
tlemen, blind honorable gentlemen, lame 
honorable gentlemen, dead honorable gen- 
tlemen, to every other consideration. Else 
wherefore live we ill a Christian land, eighteen 
hundred and odd years after our Master ? 

All this while Louisa had been passing on, 
so quiet and reserved, and so much given to 
watching the bright ashes at twilight as they 
fell into the grate and became extinct, that 
from the period "when her father had said she 
was almost a young woman, which seemed 
but yesterday, she had scarcely attracted his 
notice again, when he found her quite a 
young woman. 

“ Quite a young woman,” said Mr. Grad- 
grind, musing. “Dear me!” 

Soon after this discovery he became more 
thoughtful than usual for several days, and 
seemed much engrossed by one subject. On 
a certain night, when he w r as going out, and 
Louisa came to bid him good bye before his 
departure, as he was not to be home until 
late, and she would not see him again until 
the morning, he held her in his arms, looking 
at her in his kindest manner, and Said : 

“ My dear Louisa, you are a woman!” 

She answered with the old, quick, searching 
look of the night when she was found at the 
circus ; then cast down her eyes — “ Yes, 
father.” 

“ My dear,” said Mr. Gradgrind, “ it is 


necessary that I should speak with you alone 
and seriously. Come to me in my room after 
breakfast to-morrow, will you?” 

“ Yes, father.” 

“ Your hands are rather cold, Louisa. Are 
you not well 

“ Quite well, father.” 

“ And cheerful ?” 

She looked at him again, and smiled in a 
peculiar manner. “ I am as cheerful, father, 
as I usually am, or usually have been.” 

“ That’s well,” said Mr. Gradgrind. So he 
kissed her and went away, and Louisa re- 
turned to the serene apartment of the hair- 
cutting character, and leaning her elbow on 
her hand, looked again at the short-lived 
sparks that so soon subsided into ashes. 

“Are you there, Loo?” said her brother, 
looking in at the door. He was quite a young 
gentleman of pleasure now, and not quite a 
prepossessing one. 

“Dear Tom,” she answered, rising and 
embracing him, “how long it is since you 
have been to see me !” 

“Why, I have been otherwise engaged. 
Loo, in the evenings ; and in the daytime old 
Bounderby has been keeping me at it rather. 
But I touch him up with you when he comes 
it too strong, and so we preserve an under- 
standing. I say ! has father said anything 
particular to you to-day or yesterday, Loo?” 

“ No, Tom. But he told me to-night that 
he wished to do so in the morning.” 

“ Ah ! that’s what I mean,” said Tom. “ Do 
you know where he is to-night?” — with a 
very deep expression. 

“ No.” 

“ Then I’ll tell you. He’s with old Bound- 
erby. They are having a regular confab 
together up at the Bank. Why at the Bank, 
do you think? Well, I’ll tell you again. To 
keep Mrs. Sparsit’s ears as far off as possible, 
I expect.” 

With her hand upon her brother’s shoulder, 
Louisa still stood looking at the fire. Her 
brother glanced at her face with greater in- 
terest than usual, and encircling her v T aist 
with his arm drew her coaxingly to him. 

“ You are very fond of me, an’t you. 
Loo ?” 

“Indeed I am, Tom, though you do let 
such long intervals go by without coming to 
see me.” 

“Well, you know,” said Tom, “when you 
say that, you are near my thoughts. We 
might be so much oftener together, mightn’t 
we. Always together, almost, mightn’t we ? 
It would do me a great deal of good if you 
w r ere to make up your mind to I know what. 
Loo. It would be a splendid thing for me. 
It would be uncommonly jolly !” 

Her thoughtfulness baffled his cunning 
scrutiny. He could make nothing of her 
face. He pressed her in his arm, and kissed 
her cheek. She returned the kiss, but still 
looked at the fire. 

“Isay, Loo! I thought I’d come and .just 


HARD TIMES. 


35 


hint to you what was going on : though I 
supposed you’d most likely guess, even if you 
didn’t know. I can’t stay, because I’m en- 
gaged to some fellows to-night. You w r on’t 
forget how fond you are of me?” 

“ No, dear Tom, I won’t forget.” 

“ That’s a capital girl,” said Tom. “ Good 
bye, Loo.” 

She gave him an affectionate good night, 
and went out with him to the door, whence 
the fires of Coketown could be seen, making 
the distance lurid. She stood there looking 
steadfastly towards them, and listening to his 
departing steps. They retreated quickly, as 
if glad to get away from Stone Lodge, and 
she stood there yet when he was gone and all 
was quiet. It seemed as if, first in her own 
fire within the house, and then in that fiery 
haze without, she tried to discover what kind 
of w'oof Old Time, that greatest and longest- 
established Spinner of all — one of the few I 
have heard of who is not at once a Croesus 
and a Victim — would weave from the threads 
he had already spun into a woman. But his 
factory is a secret place, his work is noiseless, 
ane his Hands are mutes. 

chapter xv. 

Although Mr. Gradgrind did not take 
after Blue Beard, his room was quite a Blue 
chamber in its abundance of blue books. 
Whatever they could prove (which is usually 
anything you like), they proved there, in an 
army constantly strengthening by the arrival 
of new recruits. In that charmed apartment, 
the most complicated social questions were 
cast up, got into exact totals, and finally 
settled — if those concerned could only have 
been brought to know it. As if an astrono- 
mical observatory should be made without 
any windows, and the astronomer within 
should arrange the starry universe solely by 
pen, ink and paper, so Mr. Gradgrind, in 
his Observatory (and there are many like it), 
had no need to cast an eye upon the teeming 
myriads of human beings around him, but 
could settle all their destinies on a slate, and 
wipe out all their tears with one dirty little 
bit of sponge. 

To this Observatory, then : a stern room 
with a deadly-statistical clock in it, which 
measured every second with a beat like a rap 
upon a coffin-lid ; Louisa repaired on the 
appointed morning. The window looked 
towards Coketown 5 and when she sat down 
near her father’s table, she saw the high 
chimneys and the long tracks of smoke loom- 
ing in the heavy distance gloomily. 

“ My dear Louisa,” said her father, “ I 
prepared you last night to give me your 
serious attention in the conversation w r e are 
now going to have together. You have been 
so well trained, and you do, I am happy to 
say, so much justice to the education you 
have received, that I have perfect confidence 
in your good sense. You are not impulsive, 
you are not romantic, you are accustomed to 


view everything from the strong dispassionate 
ground of reason and calculation. From that 
ground alone, I know you will view and 
consider what I am going to communicate.” 

He waited, as if he would have been 
glad that she said something. But, she said 
never a word. 

“Louisa my dear, you are the subject of a 
proposal of marriage that has been made to 
me.” 

Again he waited, and again she answered 
not one word. This so far surprised him, as 
to induce him gently to repeat “ a proposal of 
marriage, my dear.” To which, she returned 
without any visible emotion whatever : 

“I hear you, father. I am attending, I 
assure you.’’ 

“Well!” said Mr. Gradgrind, breaking 
into a smile, after being for the moment at e 
loss, “ you are even more dispassionate than 
I expected, Louisa. Or, perhaps you are 
not unprepared for the announcement I have 
it in charge to make ?” 

“I cannot say that, father, until I hear it. 
Prepared or unprepared, I wish to hear it all 
from you. I wish to hear you state it to me, 
father.” 

Strange to relate, Mr. Gradgrind was not 
so collected at this moment as his daughter 
was. He took a paper-knife in his hand, 
turned it over, laid it down, took it up again, 
and even then had to look along the blade of 
it, considering how to go on. 

“ What you say, my dear Louisa, is perfectly 
reasonable. I have undertaken then to let you 

know that in short, that Mr. Bounderby 

has informed me that he has long watched 
your progress with particular interest and 
pleasure, and has long hoped that the time 
might ultimately arrive when he should offer 
you his hand in marriage. That time, to which 
he has so long, and certainly with great 
constancy, looked forward, is now come. Mr. 
Bounderby has made his proposal of marriage 
to me, and has entreated me to make it 
known to you, and to express his hope that 
you will take it into your favourable con- 
sideration.” 

Silence between them. The deadly-statistical 
clock very hollow. The distant smoke very 
black and heavy. 

“Father,” said Louisa, “do you think I 
love Mr. Bounderby ?” 

Mr. Gradgrind was extremely discomfited 
by this unexpected question. “ Well, my 
child,” he returned, “ I — really — cannot take 
upon myself to say.” 

“Father,” pursued Louisa in exactly the 
same voice as before, “ do you ask me to love 
Mr. Bounderby?” 

“ My dear Louisa, no. No. I ask nothing.” 

“Father,” she still pursued, “does Mr. 
Bounderby ask me to love him ?” 

“ Really, my dear,” said Mr. Gradgrind, 
“ it is difficult to answer your question — ” 

“ Difficult to answer it, Yes or No, 
father?” 


A 




HARD TIMEb. 


36 

“ Certainly, my dear. Because ;” here was 
something to demonstrate, and it set him up 
again 5 “ because the reply depends so mate- 
rially, Louisa, on the sense in which we use 
the expression. Now, Mr. Bounderby does 
not do you the injustice, and does not do 
himself the injustice, of pretending to any- 
thing fanciful, fantastic, or (I am using 
synonymous terms) sentimental. Mr. Bound- 
erby would have seen you grow up under 
his eyes, to very little purpose, if he could so 
far forget what is due to your good sense, not 
to say to his, as to address you from any such 
ground. Therefore, perhaps the expres- 
sion itself— I merely suggest this to you, my 
dear— may be a little misplaced.” 

“ What would you advise me to use in its 
stead, father ?” 

‘‘Why, my dear Louisa,” said Mr. Grad- 
grind, completely recovered by this time, “ I 
would advise you (since you ask me) to 
consider this question, as you have been 
accustomed to consider every other question, 
simply as one of tangible Fact. The ignorant 
and the giddy may embarrass such subjects 
with irrelevant fancies, and other absur- 
dities that have no existence, properly 
viewed — really no existence — but it is no 
compliment to you to say, that you know 
better. Now, what are the Facts of this 
case ? You are, we will say in round num- 
bers, twenty years of age ; Mr. Bounderby 
is, we will say in round numbers, fifty. 
There is some disparity in your respective 
years, but in your means and positions there 
is none ; on the contrary, there is a great 
suitability. Then the question arises, Is this 
one disparity sufficient to operate as a bar to 
such a marriage? In considering this ques- 
tion, it is not unimportant to take into account 
the statistics of marriage, so far as they have 
yet been obtained, inj^England and Wales. 
I find, on reference to the figures, that a large 
proportion of these marriages are contracted 
between parties of very unequal ages, and 
that the elder of these contracting parties is, 
in rather more than three-fourths of these 
instances, the bridegroom. It is remarkable 
as showing the wide prevalence of this law, 
that among the natives of the British posses- 
sions in India, also in a considerable part of 
China, and among the Calmucks of Tartary, 
the best means of computation yet furnished 
us by travellers, yield similar results. The 
disparity I have mentioned, therefore, almost 
ceases to be disparity, and (virtually) all but 
disappears.” 

“ What do you recommend, father,” asked 
Louisa, her reserved composure not in the 
least affected by these gratifying results, 
“ that I should substitute for the term I used 
just now ? For the misplaced expression ?” 

“Louisa,” returned her father, “it appears 
to me that nothing can be plainer. Confining 
yourself rigidly to Fact, the question of Fact 
you state to yourself is : Does Mr. Bounderby 
ask me to marry him ? Yes, he docs. The 


sole remaining question then is : Shall I 
marry him ? I think nothing can be plainer 
than that.” 

“ Shall I marry him ?” repeated Louisa, 
with great deliberation. 

“ Precisely. And it is satisfactory to me, 
as your father, my dear Louisa, to know that 
you do not come to the consideration of that 
question with the previous habits of mind, 
and habits of life, that belong to many young 
women.” 

“ No, father,” she returned, “ I do not.” 

“I now leave you to judge for yourself,” 
said Mr. Gradgrind. “ I have stated the case, 
as such cases are usually stated among prac- 
tical minds ; I have stated it, as the case of 
your mother and myself was stated in its 
time. The rest, my dear Lousia, is for you 
to decide.” 

From the beginning, she had sat looking 
at him fixedly. As he now leaned back in 
his chair, and bent his deep-set eyes upon her 
in his turn, perhaps he might have seen one 
wavering moment in her, when she was im- 
pelled to throw herself upon his breast, and 
give him the pent-up confidences of her heart. 
But, to see it. he must have overleaped at a 
bound the artificial barriers he had for many 
years been erecting, between himself and all 
those subtle essences of humanity which will 
elude the utmost cunning of algebra until the 
last trumpet ever to be sounded shall blow 
even algebra to wreck. The barriers were too 
many and too high for such a leap. He did 
not see it. With his unbending, utilitarian, 
matter-pf-fact face, he hardened her again ; 
and the moment shot away into the plumb- 
less depths of the past, to mingle with all the 
lost opportunities that are drowned there. 

Removing her eyes from him, she sat so 
long looking silently towards the town, that 
he said, at length : “ Are you consulting the 
chimneys of the Coketown works, Louisa ?” 

“ There seems to be nothing there, but 
languid and monotonous smoke. Yet when 
the night comes, Fire bursts out, father !” she 
answered, turning quickly. 

“ Of course I know that, Louisa. I do not 
see the application of the remark.” To do 
him justice he did not, at all. 

She passed it away with a slight motion of 
her hand, and concentrating her attention upon 
him again, said, “Father, I have ofjten thought 
that life is very short” This was so dis- 

tinctly one of his subjects that he interposed : 

“ It is short, no doubt, my dear. Still, the 
average duration of human life is proved to 
have increased of late years. The calculations 
of various life assurance and annuity offices, 
among other figures which cannot go wrong, 
have established the fact.” 

“ I speak of my own life, father.” 

“ 0 indeed ? Still,” said Mr. Gradgrind, 
“I need not point out to you, Louisa, that it 
is governed by the laws which govern lives 
in the aggregate.” 

“While it lasts, I would wish to do the 


HARD TIMES. 


37 


little I can, and the little I am fit for. What 
does it matter !” 

Mr. Grad grind seemed rather at a loss to 
understand the last four words ; replying, 
'* How, matter ? What, matter, my dear ?” 

“ Mr. Bounderby,” she went on in a steady, 
straight way, without regarding this, “ asks 
me to marry him. The question I have to 
ask myself is, shall I marry him? That is 
so, father, is it not ? You have told me so, 
father. Have you not ?” 

“ Certainly, my dear.” 

“Let it be so. Since Mr. Bounderby likes 
to take me thus, I am satisfied to accept his 
proposal. Tell him, father, as soon as you 
please, that this was my answer. Repeat it, 
word for word, if you can, because I should 
wish him to know w r hat I said.” 

“ It is quite right, my dear,” retorted her 
father approvingly, “to be exact. I will 
observe your very proper request. Have you 
any wish, in reference to the' period of your 
marriage, my child?” 

“ None, father. What does it matter !” 

Mr. Gradgrind had drawn his chair a little 
nearer to her, and taken her hand. But, her 
repetition of these words seemed to strike 
with some little discord on his ear. He 
paused to look at her, and, still holding her 
hand, said : 

« Louisa, I have not considered it essential 
to ask you one question, because the possi- 
bility implied in it appeared to me to be too 
remote. But, perhaps I ought to do so. You 
have never entertained in secret any other 
proposal ?” 

“ Father,” she returned, almost scornfully, 
“ what other proposal can have been made to 
me 1 Whom have I seen ? Where have I 
been? What are my heart’s experiences?” 

“ My dear Louisa,” returned Mr. Grad- 
grind, re-assured and satisfied, “ you correct 
me justly. I merely wished to discharge my 
duty.” 

“ What do I know, father,” said Louisa in 
her quiet manner, “ of tastes and fancies ; of 
aspirations and affections ; of all that part of 
my nature in which such light things might 
have been nourished? What escape have I 
had from problems that could be demonstrated, 
and realities that could fie grasped?” As she 
said it, she unconsciously closed her hand, as 
if upon a solid object, and slowly opened it 
as though she were releasing dust or ash. 

“ My dear,” assented her eminently prac- 
tical parent, “quite true, quite true.” 

i( Why, father,” she pursued, “what 
a strange question to ask me / The baby- 
preference that even I have heard of as com- 
mon among children, has never had its innocent 
resting-place in my breast. You have been 
so careful of me, that I never had a child’s 
heart. You have trained me so well, that I 
never dreamed a child’s dream. \ ou have 
dealt so wisely with me, father, from my 
cradle to this hour, that I never had a child’s 
belief or a child’s fear.” 




Mr. Gradgrind was quite moved by his 
success, and by this testimony to it. “ My 
dear Louisa,” said he, “ you abundantly repay 
my care. Kiss me, my dear girl.” 

So, his daughter kissed him. Detaining 
her in his embrace, he said, “ I may assure 
you now, my favourite child, that I am made 
happy by the sound decision at which you 
have arrived. Mr. Bounderby is a very re- 
markable man 5 aud what little disparity can 
be said to exist between you — if any — is more 
than counterbalanced by the tone your mind 
has acquired. ,It has always been my object 
so to educate you, as that you might, while still 
in your early youth, be (if I may so express 
myself ) almost any age. Kiss me once more, 
Louisa. Now, let us go and find your 
mother.” 

Accordingly, they went down to the draw- 
ing-room, where the esteemed lady with no 
nonsense about her was recumbent as usual, 
while Sissy worked beside her. She gave 
some feeble signs of returning animation 
when they entered, and presently the faint 
transparency was presented in a sitting 
attitude. 

“ Mrs. Gradgrind,” said her husband, who 
had waited for the achievement of this feat 
with some impatience, “ allow me to present 
to you Mrs. Bounderby.” 

“ Oh !” said Mrs. Gradgrind, “ so you have 
settled it ! Well, I am sure I hope your 
health may be good, Louisa ; for if your 
head begins to split as soon as you are 
married, which was the case with mine, I 
cannot consider that you are to be envied, 
though I have no doubt you think you are, 
as all girls do. However, I give you joy, my 
dear — and I hope you may now turn all your 
ological studies to good account, I am 
sure I do ! I must give you a kiss of 
congratulation, Louisa ; but don’t touch 
my right shoulder, for there’s something 
running down it all day long. And now 
you see,” whimpered Mrs. Gradgrind, ad- 
justing her shawls after the affectionate 
ceremony. “ I shall be worrying myself, 
morning, noon, and night, to know what I am 
to call him !” 

“ Mrs. Gradgrind,” said her husband, 
solemnly, “ what do you mean?” 

“Whatever I am to call him, Mr. Grad- 
grind, when he is married to Louisa ! I 
must call him something. It’s impossible,” 
said Mrs. Gradgrind, with a mingled sense of 
politeness and injury, “ to be constantly 
addressing him, and never giving him a name. 
I cannot call him Josiah, for the name is in- 
supportable to me. You yourself wouldn’t 
hear of Joe, you very well know. Am I to 
call my own son-iu-law, Mister ? Not, I be- 
lieve, unless the time has arrived when, as an 
invalid, I am to be trampled upon by my 
relations. Then, what am I to call him ?” 

Nobody present having any suggestion to 
offer in the remarkable emergency, Mrs. 
Gradgrind departed this life for the time 


38 


HARD TIMES. 




being, after delivering the following codicil to 
her remarks already executed : 

“ As to the wedding, all I ask, Louisa, is,— 
and I ask it with a fluttering in my chest, 
which actually extends to the soles of my feet, 
— that it may take place soon. Otherwise, I 
know it is one of those subjects I shall 
never hear the last of.” 

When Mr. Gradgriud had presented Mrs. 
Bounderby, Sissy had suddenly turned her 
head, and looked, in wonder, in pity, in sorrow, 
in doubt, in a multitude of emotions, towards 
Louisa. Louisa had known it, and seen it, 
without looking at her. From that moment 
she was impassive, proud, and cold — held 
Sissy at a distance — changed to her alto- 
gether. 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Mr. Bounderby’s first disquietude, on 
hearing of his happiness, was occasioned by 
the necessity of imparting it to Mrs. Sparsit. 
He could not make up his mind how to do 
that, or what the consequences of the step 
might be. Whether she would instantly depart 
bag and baggage, to Lady Scadgers, or would 
positively refuse to budge from the premises ; 
whether she would be plaintive or abusive, 
tearful or tearing ; whether she would break 
her heart, or break the looking-glass : Mr. 
Bounderby could not at all foresee. However, 
as it must be done, he had no choice but to 
do it ; so, after attempting several letters, 
and failing in them all, he resolved to do it 
by word of mouth. 

On his way home, on the evening he 
set aside for this momentous purpose, he 
took the precaution of stepping into a 
chemist’s shop and buying a bottle of the 
very strongest smelling-salts. “ By George !” 
said Mr. Bounderby, “ if she takes it in 
the fainting way, I’ll have the skin off her 
nose, at all events !” But, in spite of 
being thus forearmed, he entered his own 
house with anything but a courageous 
air ; and appeared, before the object of his 
misgivings, like a dog who was conscious of 
coming direct from the pantry. 

“ Good evening, Mr. Bounderby !” 

“ Good evening, ma’am, good evening.” 
He drew up his chair, and Mrs. Sparsit drew 
back hers, as who should say, “ Your fireside, 
sir. I freely admit it. It is for you to occupy 
it all, if you think proper.” 

“ Don't go to the North Pole, ma’am !” 
said Mr. Bounderby. 

“ Thank you, sir,” said Mrs. Sparsit, and 
returned, though short of her former posi- 
tion. 

Mr. Bounderby sat looking at her, as, with 
the points of a stiff, sharp pair of scissors, she 
picked out holes for some inscrutable orna- 
mental purpose, in a piece of cambric. An 
operation which, taken in connexion with the 
bushy eyebrows and the Roman nose, suggested 
with some liveliness the idea of a hawk 
engaged upon the eyes of a tough little bird. 


She was so stedfastly occupied, that many 
minutes elapsed before she looked up from 
her work ; when she did so, Mr. Bounderby 
bespoke her attention with a bitch of his 
head. 

“ Mrs. Sparsit, ma’am,” said Mr. Bounderby, 
putting his hands in his pockets, and assuring 
himself with his right hand that the cork of 
the little bottle was ready for use, “ I have 
no occasion to say to you, that you are not 
only a lady born and bred, but a devilish sen- 
sible woman.’’ 

“ Sir,” returned the lady, “ this is indeed not 
the first time that you have honored me with 
similar expressions of your good opinion.” 

“ Mrs. Sparsit ma’am,” said Sir. Boun- 
derby, “ I am going to astonish you.’’ 

•‘Yes, sir?” returned Mrs. Sparsit, inter- 
rogatively, and in the most tranquil manner 
possible. She generally wore mittens, and 
she now laid down her w*ork, and smoothed 
those mittens. 

“ I am going, ma’am,” said Bounderby, “ to 
marry Tom Gradgrind’s daughter.” 

“ Yes, sir ?” returned Mrs. Sparsit. “ I hope 
you may be happy, Mr. Bounderby. Oh, in- 
deed, I hope you may be happy, sir !” And 
she said it with such great condescension, as 
well as with such great compassion for him, that 
Bounderby, — far more disconcerted than if 
she had thrown her work-box at the mirror, 
or swooned on the hearth-rug, — corked up the 
smelling-salts tight in his pocket, and thought, 
“ Now con-found this woman, who could have 
ever guessed that she would take it in this 
way !” 

“ I wish with all my heart, sir,” said Mrs. 
Sparsit, in a highly superior manner ; some- 
how she seemed, in a moment, to have estab- 
lished a right to pity him ever afterwards ; 
“ that you may be in all respects very happy.” 

“ Well, ma’am,” returned Bounderby, with 
some resentment in his tone : which was 
clearly lowered, though in spite of himself, 
“ I am obliged to you. I hope I shall be.” 

“ Do you, sir ?” said Mrs. Sparsit, with 
great affability. “ But naturally you do ; of 
course you do.” 

A very awkward pause on Mr. Bounderby’s 
part, succeeded. Mrs. Sparsit sedately resumed 
her work, and occasionally gave a small 
cough, which sounded like the cough of 
conscious strength and forbearance. 

“ Well, ma’am,” resumed Bounderby, 
“ under these circumstances, I imagine it 
would not be agreeable to a character like 
yours to remain here, though you would be 
very welcome here ?” 

“ Oh dear no, sir, I could on no account 
think of that!” Mrs. Sparsit shook her 
head, still in her highly superior manner, and 
a little changed the small cough — coughing 
now, as if the spirit of prophecy rose within 
her, but had better be coughed down. 

“ However, ma’am,” said Bounderby, 
“ there are apartments at the Bank, where a 
born and bred lady, as keeper of the place, 


HARD TIMES. 


39 


would be rather a catch than otherwise ; and 
if the same terms — 

“I beg your pardon, sir. You were so 
good as to promise that you would always 
substitute the phrase, annual compliment.” 

“ Well, ma’am, annual compliment. If the 
same annual compliment would be acceptable 
there, why, I see nothing to part us unless 
you do.” 

“ Sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit. “ The pro- 
posal is like yourself, and if the position I 
should assume at the Bank is one that I 
could occupy without descending lower in the 
social scale ” 

“ Why, of course it is,” said Bounderby. 
“ If it was not, ma’am, you don’t suppose that 
I should offer it to a lady who has moved in 
the society you have moved in. Not that I 
care for such society, you know ! But you 
do.” 

“ Mr. Bounderby, you are very consi- 
derate.” 

u You’ll have your own private apartments, 
and you’ll have your coals and your candles 
and all the rest of it, and you’ll have your 
maid to attend upon you, and you’ll have 
your light porter to protect you, and you’ll 
be what I take the liberty of considering 
precious comfortable,” said Bounderby. 

“ Sir,” rejoined Mrs. Sparsit, “ say no 
more. In yielding up my trust here, I shall 
not be freed from the necessity of eating the 
bread of dependence she might have said 
the sweet bread, for that delicate article in a 
savoury brown sauce was her favourite 
supper : “ and I would rather receive it from 
your hand, than from any other. Therefore, sir, 
I accept your offer gratefully, and with many 
sincere acknowledgments for past favors. And 
I hope sir,” said Mrs. Sparsit, concluding in 
an impressively compassionate manner, “I 
fondly hope that Miss Gradgrind may be all 
you desire, and deserve !” 

Nothing moved Mrs. Sparsit from that 
position any more. It was in vain for Boun- 
derby to bluster, or to assert himself in any 
of his explosive ways ; Mrs. Sparsit was 
resolved to have compassion on him, as a 
Victim. She was polite, obliging, cheerful, 
hopeful ; but, the more polite, the more 
obliging, the more cheerful, the more hopeful, 
the more exemplary altogether, she ; the 
forlorner Sacrifice and Victim he. She had 
that tenderness for his melancholy fate, that 
his great red countenance used to break out 
into cold perspirations when she looked at 
him. 

Meanwhile the marriage was appointed 
to be solemnised in eight weeks’ time, and 
Mr. Bounderby went every evening to Stone 
Lodge as an accepted wooer. Love was made 
on these occasions in the form of bracelets ; 
and, on all occasions during the period of 
betrothal, took a manufacturing aspect. 
Dresses were made, jewellery was made, 
cakes and gloves were made, settlements 
were made, and an extensive assortment of 


Facts did appropriate honor to the contract. 
The business was all Fact, from first to last. • 
The hours did not go through any of those 
rosy performances, which foolish poets have 
ascribed to them at such times ; neither did 
the clocks go any faster, or any slower, than 
at other seasons. The deadly-statistical re- 
corder in the Gradgrind observatory knocked 
every second on the head as it was born, and 
buried it with his accustomed regularity. 

So the day came, as all other days come to 
people who will only stick to reason ; and 
when it came, there were married in the 
church of the florid wooden legs — that 
popular order of architecture — Josiah Boun- 
derby Esquire, of Coketown, to Louisa eldest 
daughter of Thomas Gradgrind Esquire of 
Stone Lodge, M.P. for that borough. And 
when they were united in holy matrimony, 
they went home to breakfast at Stony Lodge 
aforesaid. 

There was an improving party assembled 
on the auspicious occasion, who knew what 
everything they had to eat and drink was 
made of, and how it was imported or ex- 
ported, and in what quantities, and in what 
bottoms, whether native or foreign, and all 
about it. The bridesmaids, down to little 
Jane Gradgrind, were, in an intellectual 
point of view, fit helpmates for the calculating 
boy ; and there was no nonsense about any 
of the company. 

; After breakfast, the bridegroom addressed 
them in the following terms. 

“ Ladies and gentlemen, I am Josiah Boun- 
derby of Coketown. Since you have done 
my wife and myself the honour of drinking 
our healths and happiness, I suppose I must 
acknowledge the same ; though, as you all 
know me, and know what I am, and what my 
extraction was, you won’t expect a speech 
from a man who, when he sees a Post, says 
‘ that’s a Post,’ and when he sees a Pump, says 
‘ that’s a Pump,’ and is not to be got to call a 
Post a Pump, or a Pump a Post, or either of 
them a Toothpick. If you want a speech this 
morning, my friend and father-in-law, Tom 
Gradgrind, is a Member of Parliament, and 
you know where to get it. I am not your 
man. However, if I feel a little independent 
when I look around this table to-day, and re- 
flect how little I thought of marrying Tom 
Gradgrind’s daughter when I was a ragged 
street-boy, who never washed his face unless 
it was at a pump, and that no oftener than 
once a fortnight, I hope I may be excused. 
So, I hope you like my feeling independent ; 
if you don’t, I can’t help it. I do feel 
independent. Now, I have mentioned, and you 
have mentioned, that I am this day married 
to Tom Gradgrind’s daughter. I am very 
glad to be so. It has long been my wish to 
be so. I have watched her bringing up, and 
I believe she is worthy of me. At the same 
time — not to deceive you — I believe I am 
worthy of her. So, I thank you, on both our 
parts, for the goodwill you have shown to* 


40 


HARD TIMES. 


wards us ; and the best wish I can give the 
• unmarried part of the present company, is 
this : I hope every bachelor may find as 
good a wife as I have found. And I hope 
every spinster may find as good a husband as 
my wife has found.” 

Shortly after which oration, as they were 
going on a nuptial trip to Lyons, in order 
that Mr. Bounderby might take the oppor- 
tunity of seeing how the Hands got on in those 
parts, and whether they, too, required to be 
fed with gold spoons 5 the happy pair de- 
parted for the railroad. The bride, in pass- 
ing down stairs, dressed for her journey, 
found Tom waiting for her — flushed, either 
with his feelings or the vinous part of the 
breakfast. 

11 What a game girl you are, to be such a 
first-rate sister, Loo ?” whispered Tom. 

She clung to him, as she should have clung 
to some far better nature that day, and was 
a little shaken in her reserved composure for 
the first time. 

“ Old Bounderby’s quite ready,” said Tom. 
“ Time’s up. Good bye ! I shall be on the 
look-out for you, when you come back. I say, 
my dear Loo ! An’t it uncommonly jolly 
now !” 

CHAPTER XVII. 

A sunny midsummer day. There was such 
a thing sometimes, even in Coketown. 

Seen from a distance in such weather, 
Coketown lay shrouded in a haze of its own,- 
-which appeared impervious to the sun’s rays. 
You only knew the town w~as there, because 
you knew there could have been no such 
sulky blotch upon the prospect without a 
town. A blur of soot and smoke, now con- 
fusedly tending this way, now that way, now 
aspiring to the vault of Heaven, now murkily 
creeping along the earth, as the wind rose 
and fell, or changed its quarter : a dense form- 
less jumble, with sheets of cross light in it, 
that showed nothing but masses of darkness : 
— Coketown in the distance was suggestive 
of itself, though not a brick of it could be 
seen. 

The wonder was, it was there at all. It 
had been ruined so often, that it was amazing 
how it had borne so many shocks. Surely 
there never was such fragile china-ware as 
that of which the millers of Coketown w r ere 
made. Handle them never so lightly, and they 
fell to pieces -with such ease that you might 
suspect them of having been flawed before. 
They were ruined, when they were required to 
send labouring children to school ; they were 
ruined, when inspectors were appointed to 
look into their works j they were ruined, when 
such inspectors considered it doubtful whe- 
ther they were quite justified in chopping 
people up with their machinery ; they were 
utterly undone, when it was hinted that per- 
haps they need not always make quite so much 
smoke. Besides Mr. Bounderby’s gold spoon 


which was generally received in Coketown, 
another prevalent fiction was very popular 
there. It took the form of a threat. When 
ever a Coketowner felt he was ill-used— 
that is to say, whenever he was not left entirely 
alone, and it was proposed to hold him account- 
able for the consequences of any of his acts — he 
was sure to come out with the awful menace, 
that he would “ sooner pitch his property into 
the Atlantic.” This had terrified the Home 
Secretary within an inch of his life, on several 
occasions. 

However, the Coketowners were so patri- 
otic after all, that they never had pitched 
their property into the Atlantic yet, but on 
the contrary, had been kind enough to take 
mighty good care of it. So there it was, in 
the haze yonder ; and it increased and multi- 
plied. 

The streets were hot and dusty on the 
summer day, and the sun was so bright that 
it even shone through the heavy vapour 
drooping over Coketown, and could not be 
looked at steadily. Stokers emerged from 
low underground doorways into factory yards, 
and sat on steps, and posts, and palings, 
wiping their swarthy visages, and contem- 
plating coals. The -whole town seemed to be 
frying in oil. There was a stifling smell 
of hot oil everywhere. The steam-engines 
shone with it, the dresses of the Hands 
were soiled wifh it, the mills throughout their 
many stories oozed and trickled it. The at- 
mosphere of those Fairy palaces was like the 
breath of the simoom ] and their inhabitants, 
wasting with heat, foiled languidly in the 
desert. But no temperature made the melan- 
choly mad elephants more mad or more sane. 
Their wearisome heads wont up and down at 
the same rate, in hot weather and cold, wet 
weather and dry, fair weather and foul. 
The measured motion of their shadows on 
the walls, was the substitute Coketown had to 
show for the shadows of rustling woods ; while, 
for the summer hum of insects, it could offer, 
all the year round, from the dawn of Monday 
to the night of Saturday, the -whirr of shafts 
and wheels. 

Drowsily they whirred all through this 
sunny day, making the passenger more 
sleepy and more hot as he passed the hum- 
ming walls of the mills. Sun-blinds, and 
sprinklings of water, a little cooled the main 
streets and the shops ; but the mills, and 
the courts and alleys, baked at a fierce 
heat. Down upon the river that was black 
and thick with dye, some Coketown boys who 
were at large — a rare sight there — rowed a 
crazy boat, which made a spumous track upon 
the water as it jogged along, while every dip 
of an oar stirred up vile smells. But the sun 
itself, however beneficent generally, was less 
kind to Coketown than hard frost, and rarely 
looked intently into any of its closer regions 
without engendering more death than life. 
So does the eye of Heaven itself become an 
evil eye, when incapable or sordid hands are 


HARD TIMES. 


41 


interposed between it and the things it look 
upon to bless. 

Mrs. Sparsit sat in her afternoon apartment 
at the Bank, on the shadier side of the frying 
street. Office-hours were over ; and at that 
period of the day, in warm weather, she usually 
embellished with her genteel presence, a mana- 
gerial board- room over the public office. Her 
own private sitting-room was a story higher, 
at the window of which post of observation she 
was ready, every morning, to greet Mr. 
Bounderby as he came across the road, with 
the sympathising recognition appropriate to a 
Victim. He had been married now, a year ; 
and Mrs. Sparsit had never released him from 
her determined pity a moment. 

The Bank offered no violence to the whole- 
some monotony of the town. It was another 
red brick house, with black outside shutters, 
green inside blinds, a black street door up 
two white steps, a brazen door-plate, and a 
brazen door handle full stop. It was a size 
larger than Mr. Bounderby’s house, as other 
houses were from a size to half-a-dozen sizes 
smaller ; in all other particulars, it was 
strictly according to pattern. 

Mrs. Sparsit was conscious that by coming 
in the evening-tide among the desks and wri- 
ting implements, she shed a feminine, not to 
say also aristocratic, grace upon the office. 
Seated, with her needlework or netting ap- 
paratus, at the window, she had a self-lauda- 
tory sense of correcting, by her lady-like 
deportment, the rude business aspect of 
the place. With this impression of her 
interesting character upon her, Mrs. Sparsit 
considered herself in some sort, the Bank 
Fairy. The townspeople who, in their pass- 
ing and repassing, saw her there, regarded 
her as the Bank Dragon, keeping watch over 
the treasures of the mine. 

What those treasures were, Mrs. Sparsit 
knew as little as they did. Gold and silver 
coin, precious paper, secrets that if divulged 
would bring vague destruction upon vague 
persons (generally, however, people whom 
she disliked), were the chief items in her 
ideal catalogue thereof. For the rest, she 
knew that after office-hours, she reigned su- 
preme over all the office furniture, and over a 
locked-up iron room with three locks, against 
the door of which strong chamber the 
light porter laid his head every night, on a 
truckle bed that disappeared at cockcrow. 
Further, she was lady paramount over certain 
vaults in the basement, sharply spiked off 
from communication with the predatory 
world : and over the relics of the current 
day’s work, consisting of blots of ink, worn- 
out pens, fragments of wafers, and scraps of 
paper torn so small, that nothing interesting 
could ever be deciphered on them when Mrs. 
Sparsit tried. Lastly, she was guardian over a 
little armoury of cutlasses and carbines, ar- 
rayed in vengeful order above one of the official 
chimney-pieces ; and over that respectable 
tradition never to be separated from a place 


of business claiming to be wealthy — a row of 
fire-buckets — vessels calculated to be of no 
physical utility on any occasion, but observed 
to exercise a fine moral influence, almost equal 
to bullion, on most beholders. 

A deaf serving woman and the light porter 
completed Mrs. Sparsit’s empire. The deaf 
serving-woman was rumoured to be wealthy ; 
and a saying had for years gone about among 
the lower orders of Coketown, that she would 
be murdered some night when the Bank was 
shut, for the sake of her money. It was 
generally considered, indeed, that she had 
been due some time, and ought to have fallen 
long ago ; but she had kept her life, and her 
situation, with an ill-conditioned tenacity that 
occasioned much offence and disappoint- 
ment. 

Mrs. Sparsit’s tea was just set for her on a 
pert little table, with its tripod of legs in an 
attitude, which she insinuated after office- 
hours, into the company of the stern, leathern- 
topped, long board-table that bestrode the 
middle of the room. The light porter placed 
the tea-tray on it, knuckling his forehead as 
a form of homage. 

“ Thank you, Bitzer,” said Mrs. Sparsit. 

“ Thauk you , ma’am,” returned the light 
porter. He was a very light porter indeed ; 
as light as in the days when he blinkingly 
defined a horse, for girl number twenty. 

“ Allis shut up, Bitzer?” said Mrs. Sparsit. 

“ All is shut up ma’am.” 

“And what,” said Mrs. Sparsit, pouring 
out her tea, “ is the news of the day ? 
Anything ?” 

“ Well, ma’am, I can’t say that I have 
heard anything particular. Our people are 
a bad lot ma’am ; but that is no news, un- 
fortunately.” 

“ What are the restless wretches doing 
now ?” asked Mrs. Sparsit. 

“ Merely going ou in the old way ma’am. 
Uniting, and leaguing and engaging to stand 
by one another.” 

“ It is much to be regretted,” said Mrs. 
Sparsit, making her nose more Roman and 
her eyebrows more Coriolanian in the strength 
of her severity, “ that the united masters 
allow of any such class combinations.” 

“ Yes, ma’am,” said Bitzer. 

“ Being united themselves, they ought one 
and all to set their faces against employing 
any man who is united with any other man,” 
said Mrs. Sparsit. 

“ They have done that, ma’am,” returned 
Bitzer ; “but it — rather fell through, ma’am.” 

“ I do not pretend to understand these 
things,” said Mrs. Sparsit, with dignity, “ my 
lot having been originally cast in a Widely 
different sphere ; and Mr. Sparsit, as a Fowler, 
being also quite out of the pale of any such 
dissensions. I only know that these people 
must be conquered, and. that it’s high time 
it was done once for all.” 

“ Yes, ma’am,” returned Bitzer, with a 
demonstration of great respect for Mrs. 


42 


HARO' TIMES. 


Sparsit’s oracular authority. “ lou couldn't 
put it clearer, I am sure ma’am.” 

As this was his usual hour for having a 
little confidential chat with Mrs. Sparsit, and 
as he had already caught her eye and seen 
that she was going to ask him something, 
he made a pretence of arranging the rulers, 
inkstanks, and so forth, while that lady went 
on with her tea, glancing through the open 
window down into the street. 

“Has it been a busy day, Bitzer?” asked 
Mrs. Sparsit. 

“ Not a very busy day my lady. About 
an average day.” He now and then slided 
into my lady, instead of ma’am, as an invo- 
luntary acknowledgment of Mrs. Sparsit’s 
personal dignity and claims to reverence. 

“The clerks,” said Mrs. Sparsit, carefully 
brushing an imperceptible crumb of bread and 
butter from her left-hand mitten, “ are trust- 
worthy, punctual and industrious, of course ?” 

“Yes, ma’am, pretty fair, ma’am. With 
the usual exception.” 

He held the respectable office of general 
spy and informer in the establishment, for 
which volunteer service he received a present 
at Christmas, over and above his weekly 
wage. He had grown into an extremely clear- 
headed, cautious, prudent young man, who 
was safe to rise in the world. His mind was 
so exactly regulated, that he had no affections 
or passions. All his proceedings were the 
result of the nicest and coldest calculation ; 
and it was not without cause that Mrs. Sparsit 
habitually observed of him, that he was a 
young man of the steadiest principle she had 
ever known. Having satisfied himself, on 
his father’s death, that his mother had a right 
of settlement in Coketown, this excellent 
young economist had asserted that right for 
her with such a steadfast adherence to the 
principle of the case, that she had been shut 
up in the workhouse ever since. It must be 
admitted that he allowed her half a pound of 
tea a year, which was weak in him : first, 
because all gifts have an inevitable tendency 
to pauperise the recipient, and secondly, 
because his only reasonable transaction in 
that commodity would have been to buy it for 
as little as he could possibly give, and sell it 
for as much as he could possibly get ; it hav- 
ing been clearly ascertained by philosophers 
that in this is comprised the whole duty of 
man — not a part of man’s duty, but the 
whole. 

“Pretty fair, ma’am. With the usual 
exception, ma’am,” repeated Bitzer. 

“Ah — h !” said Mrs. Sparsit, shaking her 
head over her tea-cup, and taking a long gulp. 

“ Mr. Thomas, ma’am, I doubt Mr. Thomas 
very much, ma’am, I don’t like his ways at 
all.” 

“Bitzer,” said Mrs. Sparsit, in a very 
impressive manner, “ do you recollect my 
having said anything to you respecting 
names ?” 

“I beg your pardon ma’am. It’s quite true 


that you did object to names being used, and 
they’re always best avoided.” 

“ Please to remember that I have a charge 
here,” said Mrs. Sparsit, with her air of 
state. “ I hold a trust here, Bitzer, under 
Mr. Bounderby. However improbable both 
Mr. Bounderby and myself might have 
deemed it years ago, that he would even 
become my patron, making me an annual 
compliment, I cannot but regard him in that 
light. From Mr. Bounderby I have received 
every acknowledgment of my social station, 
and every recognition of my family descent, 
that I could possibly expect. More, far more. 
Therefore, to my patron I will be scrupulously 
true. And I do not consider, I will not con- 
sider, I cannot consider,” said Mrs. Sparsit, 
with a most extensive stock on hand of honor 
and morality, “ that I should be scrupulously 
true, if I allowed names to be mentioned 
under this roof, that are unfortunately — most 
unfortunately — no doubt of that — connected 
with his.” 

Bitzer knuckled his forehead again, and 
again begged pardon. 

“No, Bitzer,” continued Mrs. Sparsit, 

“ say an individual, and I will hear you } 
say Mr. Thomas, and you must excuse me.” 

“ With the usual exception, ma’am,” said 
Bitzer, trying back, “ of an individual.” 

“Ah — hi” Mrs. Sparsit repeated the 
ejaculation, the shake of the head over her 
tea-cup, and the long gulp, as taking up the 
conversation again at the point where it had 
been interrupted. 

“ An individual, ma’am,” said Bitzer, “ has 
never been what he ought to have been, since 
he first came into the place. He is a dissi- 
pated, extravagant idler. He is not worth 
his salt, ma’am. He wouldn’t get it either, 
if he hadn’t a friend and relation at court, 
ma’am !” 

“ All — h !” said Mrs. Sparsit, with another 
melancholy shake of her head. 

“I only hope, ma’am,” pursued Bitzer, 
“ that his friend and relation may not supply 
him with the means of carrying on. Other- 
wise, ma’am, we know out of whose pocket 
that money comes.” 

“ Ah — h !” sighed Mrs. Sparsit again, with 
another melancholy shake of her head. 

“ He is to be pitied, ma’am. The last party 
1 have alluded to, is to be pitied, ma’am,” 
said Bitzer. 

“ Yes, Bitzer,” said Mrs. Sparsit. “I have 
always pitied the delusion, always.” 

“ As to to individual, ma’am,” said Bitzer, 
dropping his voice and drawing nearer, “ he 
is as improvident as any of the people in this 
town. And you know what their improvi- 
dence is, ma’am. No one could wish to know 
it better than a lady of your eminence 
does.” 

“ They would do well,” returned Mrs. Spar- 
sit “ to take example by you, Bitzer.” 

“ Thank you, ma’am. But, since you do 
refer to me, now look at me, ma’am. I have 


HARD TIMES. 


43 


put by a little, ma’am, already. That gratuity 
which I receive at Christmas, ma’am : I never 
touch it. I don’t even go the length of my 
wages, though they’re not high, ma’am. 
Why can’t they do as I have done, ma’am? 
What one person can do, another can do.” 

This, again, was among the fictions of Coke- 
town. Any capitalist there, who had made sixty 
thousand pounds out of sixpence, always pro- 
fessed to wonder why the sixty thousand 
nearest Hands didn’t each make sixty thou- 
sand pounds out of sixpence, and more or 
less reproached them every one for not 
accomplishing the little feat. What I did, 
you can do. Why don’t you go and do 
it ? 

“ As to their wanting recreations, ma’am,” 
said Bitzer, “ it’s stuff and nonsense. I don’t 
want recreations. I never did, and I never 
shall ; I don’t like ’em. As to their com- 
bining together ; there are many of them, I 
have no doubt, that by watching and inform- 
ing upon one another could earn a trifle now 
and then, whether in money or good will, and 
improve their livelihood. Then, why don’t 
they improve it, ma’am? It’s the first con- 
sideration of a rational creature, and it’s what 
they pretend to want.” 

“ Pretend indeed !” said Mrs. Sparsit. 

“I am sure we are constantly hearing, 
ma’am, till it becomes quite nauseous, . con- 
cerning their wives and families,” said Bitzer. 
“ Why look at me, ma’am ! I don’t want a 
wife and family. Why should they ?” # 

“Because they are improvident,” said Mrs. 
Sparsit. 

“ Yes, ma’am,” returned Bitzer, “ that’s 
where it is. If they were more provident, 
and less perverse, ma’am, what would 
they do ? They would say, ‘ While my hat 
covers my family,’ or, ‘while my bonnet 
covers my family’ — as the case might be 
ma’am — ‘ I have only one to feed, and that’s 
the person I most like to feed.’ ” 

“ To be sure,” assented Mrs. Sparsit, eating 
muffin. 

“ Thank you, ma’am,” said Bitzer, knuck- 
ling his forehead again, in return for the 
favour of Mrs. Sparsit’s improving conversa- 
tion. “ Would you wish a little more hot 
water, ma’am, or is their anything else that 
I could fetch you ?” 

“ Nothing just now, Bitzer.” 

“ Thank you, ma’am. I shouldn’t wish to 
disturb you at your meals, ma’am, particu- 
larly tea, knowing your partiality for it,” said 
Bitzer, craning a little to look over into the 
street from where he stood ; “ but there’s a 
gentleman been looking up here for a minute 
or so, ma’am, and he has come across as if 
he was going to knock. That is his knock, 
ma’am, no doubt.” 

lie stepped to the window ; and looking 
out, and drawing in his head again, confirmed 
himself with, “Yes, ma’am. Wouldyouwish 
the gentleman to be shown in, ma am ?” 

“ I don’t know who it can be,” said Mrs. 


Sparsit, wiping her mouth and arranging her 
mittens. 

“ A stranger, ma’am, evidently.” 

“ What n stranger can want at the Bank 
at this time of the evening, unless he comes 
upon some business for which he is too late, 
I don’t know,” said Mrs. Sparsit ; “ but I 
hold a charge in this establishnent from 
Mr. Bounderby, and I will never shrink from 
it. If to see him is any part of the duty I 
have accepted, I will see him. Use your own 
discretion, Bitzer.” 

Here the visitor, all unconscious of Mrs. 
Sparsit’s magnanimous words, repeated his 
knock, so loudly that the light porter has- 
tened down to open the door ; w'hile Mrs. 
Sparsit took the precaution of concealing her 
little table, with all its appliances upon it, in 
a cupboard, and then decamped up stairs 
that she might appear, if needful, with the 
greater dignity. 

“If you please, ma’am, the gentleman 
would wish to see you,” said Bitzer, with his 
light eye at Mrs. Sparsit’s keyhole. So, Mrs. 
Sparsit, who had improved the interval by 
touching up her cap, took her classical 
features down stairs again, and entered the 
board room in the manner of a Roman matron 
going outside the city walls to treat with 
an invading general. 

The visitor having strolled to the window, 
and being then engaged in looking carelessly 
out, was as unmoved by this impressive entry 
as man could possibly be. He stood whistling 
to himself w r ith all imaginable coolness, with 
his hat still on, and a certain air of exhaustion 
upon him, in part arising from excessive 
summer, and in .part from excessive gentility. 
For, it was to be seen with half an eye that he 
was a thorough gentleman, made to the model 
of the time ; weary of everything, and putting 
no more faith in anything than Lucifer. 

“ I believe, sir,” quoth Mrs. Sparsit, “ you 
wished to see me.” 

“ I beg your pardon,” he said, turning and 
removing his hat ; “ pray excuse me.” 

“ Humph !” thought Mrs. Sparsit, as she 
made a stately bend. “ Five and thirty, good- 
looking, good figure, good teeth, good voice, 
good breeding, well dressed, dark hair, bold 
eyes.” All w r hich Mrs. Sparsit observed in 
her womanly way — like the Sultan who put 
his head in the pail of water — merely in 
dipping down and coming up again. 

“ Please to be seated, sir,” said Mrs. 
Sparsit. 

“Thank you. Allow me.” He placed a 
chair for her, but remained himself carelessly 
lounging against the table. “ I left my ser- 
vant at the railway looking after tjfie luggage 
— very heavy train and vast quantity of it 
in the van — and strolled on, looking about 
me. Exceedingly odd place. Will you allow 
me to ask you if it’s always as black as 
this?” 

“In general much blacker,” returned Mrs. 
Sparsit, in her uncompromising way. 


44 


HARD TIMES. 


“ Is it possible ! Excuse me : you are not 
a native I think ?” 

“ No, sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit. “It was 
once my good or ill fortune, as it may be — 
before I became a widow — to move in a 
very different sphere. My husband was a 
Powler.” 

“ Beg your pardon, really !” said the 
stranger. “ Was — ■?” 

Mrs. Sparsit repeated “A Powler.” “Pow- 
ler Family,” said the stranger, after reflect- 
ing a few moments. Mrs. Sparsit signified 
assent. The stranger seemed a little more 
fatigued than before. 

“ You must be very much bored here ?” was 
the inference he drew from the communication. 

“ I am the servant of circumstances, sir,” 
said Mrs. Sparsit, “ and I have long adapted 
myself to the governing power of my life.” ' 

“ Very philosophical, “returned the stranger, 
“ and very exemplary and laudable, and — ” 
It seemed to be scarcely worth his while to 
finish the sentence, so he played with his 
watch-chain wearily. 

“May I be permitted to ask, sir,” said 
Mrs. Sparsit, “ to what I am indebted for the 
favour of — ” 

“ Assuredly,” said the stranger. “ Much 
obliged to you for reminding me. I am 
the bearer of a letter of introduction to 
Mr. Bounderby the banker. Walking 
through this extraordinarily black town, 
while they were getting dinner ready at the 
hotel, I asked a fellow whom I mefc; one of the 
working people ; who appeared to have been 
taking a shower-bath of something fluffy, 
which I assume to be the raw material ; — ” 

Mrs. Sparsit inclined her head. 

“ — Raw material — where Mr. Bounderby 
the banker, might reside. Upon which, misled 
no doubt by the word Banker, he directed me 
to the Bank. Fact being, I presume, that 
Mr. Bounderby the Banker, does not reside 
in the edifice in which I have the honour of 
offering this explanation ?” 

“ No, sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit, “ he does 
not.” 

“ Thank you. I had no intention of deliver- 
ing my letter at the present moment, nor have 
I. But, strolling on to the Bank to kill 
time, and having the good fortune to observe 
at the window,” towards which he lan- 
guidly waved his hand, then slightly bowed, 
“a lady of a very superior and agreeable 
appearance, I considered that I could not 
do better than take the liberty of asking 
that lady where Mr. Bounderby the Banker, 
does live. Which I accordingly venture, with 
all suitable apologies, to do.” 

The inattention and indolence of his man- 
ner were sufficiently relieved, to Mrs. Sparsit’s 
thinking, by a certain gallantry at ease, 
which offered her homage too. Here he was, 
for instance, at this moment, all but sitting 
on the table, and yet lazily bending over her, 
as if he acknowledged an attraction in her 
that made her charming — in her way. 


“ Banks, I know, are always suspicious, and 
officially must be,” said the stranger, whose 
lightness and smoothness of speech were 
pleasant likewise ; suggesting matter far 
more sensible and humorous than it ever 
contained — which was perhaps a shrewd 
device of the founder of this numerous sect, 
whosoever may have been that great man; 
“ therefore I may observe that my letter — 
here it is — is from the member for this place 
— Gradgrind — whom I have had the pleasure 
of knowing in London.” 

Mrs. Sparsit recognised the hand, intimated 
that such confirmation was quite unnecessary, 
and gave Mr. Bounderby’s address, with all 
needful clues and directions in aid. 

“ Thousand thanks,” said the stranger. “ Of 
course you know the Banker well ?” 

“ Yes, sir,” rejoined Mrs. Sparsit. “ In my 
dependent relation towards him, I have known 
him ten years.” 

“Quite an eternity! I think he married 
Gradgrind’s daughter ?” 

“Yes,” said Mrs. Sparsit, suddenly com- 
pressing her mouth. “ He had that — honour.” 

“The lady is quite a philosopher, I am 
told ?” 

“ Indeed, sir,” said Mrs. Sparsit. 11 Is she ?” 

“ Excuse my impertinent curiosity,” pur- 
sued the stranger, fluttering over Mrs. £jparsit’s 
eyebrows, with a propitiatory air, “ but you 
know the family, and know the world. I am 
about to know the family, and may have 
much to do with them. Is the lady so very 
alarming? Her father gives her such a 
portentously hard-headed reputation, that I 
have a burning desire to know. Is she ab- 
solutely unapproachable? Repellently and 
stunningly clever? I see, by your meaning 
smile, you think not. You have poured balm 
into my anxious soul. As to age, now. 
Forty ? Five and thirty ?” 

Mrs. Sparsit laughed outright. “ A chit,” 
said she. “ Not twenty when she was 
married.” 

“ I give you my honor, Mrs. Powler,” re- 
turned the stranger, detaching himself from 
the table, “ that I never was so astonished in 
my life !” 

It really did seem to impress him, to the 
utmost extent of his capacity of being im- 
pressed. He looked at his informant for full 
a quarter of a minute, and appeared to have 
the surprise in his mind at the time. “I 
assure you, Mrs. Powler,” he then said, much 
exhausted, “that the father’s manner pre- 
pared me for a grim and stony maturity. I 
am obliged to you, of all things, for correcting 
so absurd a mistake. Pray excuse my in- 
trusion. Many thanks. Good day !” 

He bowed himself out ; and Mrs. Sparsit, 
hiding in the window-curtain, saw him lan- 
guishing down the street on the shady side of 
the way, observed of all the town. 

“What do you think of the gentlemau, 
Bitzer?” she asked the light porter, when 
he came to take away. 


HARD TIMES. 


45 


“ Spends a deal of money on his dress, 
ma’am.’-’ 

“ It must he admitted,” said Mrs. Sparsit, 
“ that it’s very tasteful.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” returned Bitzer, “if that’s 
worth the money.” 

“Besides which, ma’am,” resumed Bitzer, 
while he was polishing the table, “ he looks to 
me as if he gamed.” 

“ It’s immoral to game,” said Mrs. Sparsit. 

“ It’s ridiculous, ma’am,” said Bitzer, 
u because the chances are against the players.” 

Whether it was that the heat prevented 
Mrs. Sparsit from working, or whether it 
was that her hand was out, she did no work 
that night. She sat at the window, when the 
sun began to sink behind the smoke ; she sat 
there, when the smoke was burning red, when 
the color faded from it, when darkness 
seemed to rise slowly out of the ground, and 
creep upward, upward, up to the house-tops, 
up the church steeple, up to the summits of 
the factory chimneys, up to the sky. Without 
a candle in the room, Mrs. Sparsit sat at the 
window, wdth her hands before her, not 
thinking much of the sounds of evening : 
the whooping of boys, the barking of dogs, 
the rumbling of wheels, the steps and voices 
of passengers, the shrill street cries, the clogs 
upon the pavement when it was their hour 
for going by, the shutting-up of shop-shutters. 
Not until the light porter announced that 
her nocturnal sw r eetbread was ready, did Mrs. 
Sparsit arouse herself from her reverie, and 
convey her dense black eyebrows — by that 
time creased with meditation, as if they 
needed ironing out — up stairs. 

“ 0, you Fool !” said Mrs. Sparsit, when 
she was alone at her supper. Whom she 
meant, she did not say ; but she could scarcely 
have meant the sweetbread. 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

The Gradgrind party wanted assistance in 
murdering the Graces. They went about re- 
cruiting ; and where could they enlist recruits 
more readily, than among the fine gentlemen 
who, having found out everything to be worth 
ngthing, were equally ready for anything ? 

Moreover, the healthy spirits who had 
mounted to this sublime height were at- 
tractive to many of the Gradgrind school. 
They liked fine gentlemen ; they pretended 
that they did not, but they did. They 
became exhausted in imitation of them ; and 
they yaw-yawed in their speech like them ; 
and they served out, with an enervated air, 
the little mouldy rations of political economy, 
on which they regaled their disciples. There 
never before was seen on earth such a won- 
derful hybrid race as was thus produced. 

Among the fine gentlemen not regularly be- 
longing to the Gradgrind school, there was 
one of a good family and a better appear- 
ance, with a happy turn of humour which had 
told immensely with the House of Commons 
on the occasion of his entertaining it with his 


(and the Board of Directors’) view of a railway 
accident, in which the most careful officers 
ever known, employed by the most liberal 
managers ever heard of, assisted by the finest 
mechanical contrivances ever devised, the 
whole in action on the best line ever con- 
structed, had killed five people and wounded 
thirty-two, by a casualty without which the 
excellence of the whole system would have 
been positively incomplete. Among the slain 
was a cow, and among the scattered articles 
unowned, a widow’s cap. And the honourable 
member had so tickled the House (which 
has a delicate sense of humour) by putting 
the cap on the cow, that it became impatient of 
any serious reference to the Coroner’s Inquest, 
and brought the railway off with Cheers and 
Laughter. 

Now, this gentleman had a younger bro- 
ther of still better appearance than himself, 
who had tried life as a Cornet of Dragoons, 
and found it a bore ; and had afterwards tried 
it in the train of an English minister abroad, 
and found it a bore ; and had then strolled 
to Jerusalem, and got bored there ; and had 
then gone yachting about the world, and got 
bored everywhere. To whom this honorable 
and jocular member fraternally said one day, 
“Jem, there’s a good opening among the hard 
Fact fellows, and they want men. I wonder 
you don’t go in for statistics.” Jem, rather 
taken by the novelty of the idea, and very 
hard up for a change, was as ready to “ go 
in” for statistics as for anything else. So, he 
went in. He coached himself up with a blue 
book or two ; and his brother put it 
about among the hard Fact fellows, and said, 
“ If you want to bring in, for any place, a 
handsome dog who can make you a devilish 
good speech, look after my brother Jem, for 
he’s your man.” After a few dashes in the 
public meeting way, Mr. Gradgrind and a 
council of political sages approved of Jem, 
and it was resolved to send him down to 
Coketown, to become known there and in the 
neighbourhood. Hence the letter Jem had 
last night shown to Mrs. Sparsit, which Mr. 
Bounderby now held in his hand ; super- 
scribed, “ Josiah Bounderby, Esquire, Banker, 
Coketown. Specially to introduce James 
Harthouse, Esquire. Thomas Gradgrind.” 

Within an hour of the receipt of this dis- 
patch and Mr. James Harthouse’s card, Mr. 
Bounderby put on his hat and went down to 
the Hotel. There, he found Mr. James Hart- 
house looking out of window, in a state of 
mind so disconsolate, that he was already half 
disposed to “ go in” for something else. 

“ My name, sir,” said his visitor, “ is Josiah 
Bounderby of Coketown.” 

Mr. James Harthouse was very happy 
indeed (though he scarcely looked so), to have, 
a pleasure he had long expected. 

“ Coketown, sir,” said Bounderby, obstinate- 
ly taking a chair, “ is not the kind of place you 
have been accustomed to. Therefore, if you’ll 
allow me — or whether you will or not, for I 


46 


HARD TIMES* 


am a plain man— I’ll tell you something about 
it before we go any further.'’ 

Mr. Harthouse would be charmed. 

“ Don’t be too sure of that,” said Boun- 
derby. “ I don’t promise it. First of all, 
you see our smoke. That’s meat and drink 
to us. It’s the healthiest thing in the 
world in all respects, and particularly for the 
lungs. If you are one of those who want us 
to consume it, I differ from you. We are 
not going to wear the bottoms of our boilers 
out any faster than we wear ’em out now, 
for all the humbugging sentiment in Great 
Britain and Ireland.” 

By way of “ going in” to the fullest extent, 
Mr. Harthouse rejoined, “ Mr. Bounderby, I 
assure you I am entirely and completely of 
your way of thinking. On conviction.” 

“ I am glad to hear it,” said Bounderby. 
“ Now, you have heard a lot of talk about the 
work in our mills, no doubt. You have ? 
Very good. I’ll state the fact of it to you. 
It’s the pleasantest work there is, and it’s the 
lightest work there is, and it’s the best paid 
work there is. More than that, we couldn’t 
improve the mills themselves, unless we laid 
down Turkey carpets on the floors. Which 
we’re not a-going to do.” 

“ Mr. Bounderby, perfectly right.” 

“ Lastly,” said Bounderby, “ as to our 
Hands. There’s not a Hand in this town, sir, 
man, woman, or child, but has one ultimate 
object in life. That object is, to be fed on tur- 
tle soup and venison with a gold spoon. Now, 
they’re not a-going — none of ’em — ever to be 
fed on turtle soup and venison with a gold 
spoon. And now you know the place.” 

Mr. Harthouse professed himself in the 
highest degree instructed and refreshed, by 
this condensed epitome of the whole Coke- 
town question. 

“Why, you see,” replied Mr. Bounderby, 
“ it suits my disposition to have a full under- 
standing with a man, particularly with a 
public man, when I make his acquaintance. 
I have only one thing more to say to you, 
Mr. Harthouse, before assuring you of the 
pleasure with which I shall respond, to the 
utmost of my poor ability, to my friend Tom 
Gradgrind’s letter of introduction. You are 
a man of family. Don’t you deceive yourself 
by supposing for a moment that I am a man 
of family. I am a bit of the dirty riff-raff, and 
a genuine scrap of tag, rag, and bobtail.” 

If anything could have exalted Jem’s 
interest in Mr. Bounderby, it would have been 
this very circumstance. Or, so he told him. 

“ So now,” said Bounderby, “ we may 
shake hands on equal terms. I say, equal 
terms, because although I know what I am, 
and the exact depth of the gutter I have 
lifted myself out of, better than any man can 
tell it me, I am as proud as you are. I am 
just as proud as you are. Having now asserted 
my independence in a proper manner, I may 
come to how do you find yourself, and I 
hope you’re pretty well.” 


=y_ 

The better, Mr. Harthouse gave him to un- 
derstand as they shook hands, for the salu- 
brious air of Coketown. Mr. Bounderby 
received the answer with favor. 

“ Perhaps you know,” said he, “ or perhaps 
you don’t know, I married Tom Gradgrind’s 
daughter. If you have nothing better to do 
than to walk up town with me, I shall be 
glad to introduce you to Tom Gradgrind’s 
daughter.” 

“Mr. Bounderby,” said Jem, “you antici- 
pate my dearest wishes.” 

They went out without further discourse ; 
and Mr. Bounderby piloted the new acquaint- 
ance who so strongly contrasted with him, to 
the private red brick dwelling, with the black 
outside shutters, the green inside blinds, and 
the black street door up the two white steps. 
In the drawing-room of which mansion, there 
presently entered to them the most remark- 
able girl Mr. James Harthouse had ever seen. 
She was so constrained, and yet so careless ; so 
reserved, and yet so watchful ; so cold and 
proud, and yet so sensitively ashamed of her 
husband’s braggart humility — from which she 
shrunk as if every example of it were a cut 
or a blow ; that it was quite a new sensation 
to observe her. In face she was no less 
remarkable than in manner. Her features 
were handsome ; but their natural play was 
so suppressed and locked up, that it seemed 
impossible to guess their genuine expres- 
sion. Utterly indifferent, perfectly self- 
reliant, never at a loss, and yet never at her 
ease, with her figure in company with them 
there, and her mind apparently quite alone, 
— it was of no use “ going in” yet awhih to 
comprehend this girl, for she baffled all 
peuetration. 

From the mistress of the house, the visitor 
glanced to the house itself. There was no 
mute sign of a woman in the room No 
graceful little adornment, no fanciful little 
device, however trivial, anywhere expressed 
her influence. Cheerless and comfortless, 
boastfully and doggedly rich, there the room 
stared at its present occupants, uusoftened 
and unrelieved by the least trace of any 
womanly occupation. As Mr. Bounderby 
stood in the midst of his household gods, so 
those unrelenting divinities occupied their 
places around Mr. Bounderby, and they were 
worthy of one another and well matched. 

“ This, sir,” said Bounderby, ■ is my wife, 
Mrs. Bounderby : Tom Gradgrind s eldest 
daughter. Loo, Mr. James Harthouse. Mr. 
Harthouse has joined your father's muster- 
roll. If he is not Tom Gradgrind’s col- 
league before long, I believe, we shall at least 
hear of him in connexion with one of our 
neighbouring towns. You observe, Mr. Hart- 
house, that my wife is my junior. I don’t 
know what she saw in me to marry me, but 
she saw something in me, 1 suppose, or she 
wouldn’t have married me She has lots 
of expensive knowledge, sir political and 
otherwise. If you want to cram for anything, 


HARD TIMES. 


47 


I should be troubled to recommend you to 
a better adviser than Loo Bounderby.” 

To a more agreeable adviser, or one from 
whom he would be more likely to learn, Mr. 
Harthouse could never be recommended. 

“ Come !” said his host. “ If you’re in 
the complimentary line, you’ll get on here, 
for you’ll meet with no competition. I have 
never been in the way of learning compli- 
ments myself, and I don’t profess to 
understand the art of paying ’em. In fact, 
despise ’em. But, your bringing-up was 
different from mine ; mine was a real thing, 
by George! You're a gentleman, and I 
don’t pretend to be one. I am Josiah 
Bounderby of Coketown, and that’s enough 
for me. However, though I am not influ- 
enced by manners and station, Loo Bounderby 
may be. She hadn’t my advantages — disad- 
vantages you would call ’em, but I call ’em 
advantages — so you’ll not waste your power, 
I dare say.” 

“ Mr. Bounderby,” said Jem, turning with 
a smile to Louisa, “ is a noble animal in a 
comparatively natural state, quite free from 
the harness in which a conventional hack 
like myself works.” 

“ You respect Mr. Bounderby very much,” 
she quietly returned. “ It is natural that 
you should.” * 

He was disgracefully thrown out, for a 
gentleman who had seen so much of the 
world, and thought, “ Now, how am I to take 
this ?” 

“ You are going to devote yourself, as I 
gather from what Mr. Bounderby has said, 
to the service of your country. You have 
made up your mind,” said Louisa, still 
standing before him where she had first 
stopped — in all the singular contrariety of her 
self-possession, and her being obviously very 
ill at ease — “ to show the nation the way 
out of all its difficulties.” 

“ Mrs. Bounderby,” he returned laughing, 
“ upon my honour, no. I will make no such 
pretence to you. I have seen a little, here and 
there, up and down ; I have found it all to be 
very worthless, as everybody has, and as some 
confess they have, and some do not ; and I am 
going in for your respected father’s opinions 
— really because I have no choice of opinions, 
and may as well back them as any thing else.” 

“ Have you none of your own?” asked 
Louisa. 

“ I have not so much as the slightest pre- 
dilection left. I assure you I attach not the 
least importance to any opinions. The result 
of the varieties of boredom I have under- 
gone, is a conviction (unless conviction is too 
industrious a word for the lazy sentiment 
I entertain on the subject), that any set 
of ideas will do just as much good as 
any other set, and just as much harm as 
any other set. There’s an English family 
with a capital motto. Che sara,sara. What 
will be, will be. It’s the only truth go- 
ing!” 


This vicious assumption of honesty in dis- 
honesty — a vice so dangerous, so deadly, and 
so common — seemed, he observed, a little to 
impress her in his favour. He followed up 
the advantage, by saying in his pleasantest 
manner : a manner to which she might 
attach as much or as little meaning as sho 
pleased : “ the side that can prove anything in 
a line of units, tens, hundreds, and thousands, 
Mrs. Bounderby, seems to me to afford the mbsl 
fun, and to give a man the best chance. I 
am quite as much attached to it as if ] 
believed it. I am quite ready to go in for it, 
to the same extent as if I believed it. And 
what more could I possibly do, if I did 
believe it !” 

“ You are a singular politician,” said 
Louisa. 

“ Pardon me ; I have not even that merit. 
We are the largest party in the state, I 
assure you, Mrs. Bounderby, if we all fell 
out of our adopted ranks and were reviewed 
together.” 

Mr. Bounderby, who had been in danger of 
bursting in silence, interposed here with a 
project for postponing the family dinner to 
half-past six, and taking Mr. James Hart- 
house in the meantime on a round of visits 
to the voting and interesting notabilities 
of Coketowa and its vicinity. The round of 
visits was made ; and Mr. James Harthouse, 
with a discreet use of his blue coaching, 
came off triumphantly, though with a consi- 
derable accession of boredom. 

In the evening he found the dinner-table 
laid for four, but they sat down only three. 
It was an appropriate occasion for Mr. Boun- 
derby to discuss the flavour of the hap’orth 
of stewed eels he had purchased in the streets 
at eight years old, and also of the inferior 
water, specially used for laying the dust, 
with which he washed down that repast. 
He likewise entertained his guest, over the 
soup and fish, with the calculation that he 
(Bounderby) had eaten in his youth at least 
three horses under the guise of polonies and 
saveloys. These recitals, Jem, in a languid 
manner, received with “charming!” every 
now and then ; and they probably would 
have decided him to go in for Jerusalem again 
to-morrow-morning, had he been less curious 
respecting Louisa. 

“Is there nothing,” he thought, glancing 
at her as she sat at the head of the table, 
where her youthful figure, small and slight, 
but very graceful, looked as pretty as it 
looked misplaced; “is there nothing that 
will move that face ?” 

Yes! By Jupiter, there was something, 
and here it was, in an unexpected shape! 
Tom appeared. She changed as the door 
opened, and broke into a beaming smile. 

A beautiful smile. Mr. James Harthouse 
might not have thought so much of it, but 
that he had wondered so long at her impas- 
sive face. She put out her hand — a pretty 
little soft hand; and her fingers closed upon 


48 


HARD TIMES. 


her brothers, as if she would have carried 
them to her lips. 

“Ay, ay?” thought the visitor. “This 
whelp is the only creature she cares for. 
So, so!” 

The whelp was presented, and took his 
chair. The appellation was not flattering, 
but not unmerited. 

“When I was your age, young Tom,” said 
Bounderby, “I was punctual, or I got no 
dinner!” 

“When you were my age,” returned Tom, 
“you hadn’t a wrong balance to get right, 
and hadn’t to dress afterwards.” 

“Never mind that now,” said Bounderby. 

“Well, then,” grumbled Tom. “Don’t begin 
witl> me.” 

' Mrs. Bounderby,” said Harthouse, per- 
fectly hearing this under-strain as it went 
on; “your brother’s face is quite familiar 
to me. Can I have seen him abroad? Or 
at some public school, perhaps?” 

“No,” she returned, quite interested, 
“he has never been abroad yet, and was 
educated here, at-home. Tom, love, I am 
telling Mr. Harthouse that he never saw you 
abroad.” 

“ No such luck, sir,” said Tom. 

There was little enough in him to brighten 
her face, for he was a sullen young fellow, 
and ungracious in his manner even to her. 
So much the greater must have been the soli- 
tude of her heart, and her need of some one 
on whom to bestow it. “ So much the more 
is this whelp the only creature she has ever 
cared for,” thought Mr. James Harthouse, 
turning it over and over. “ So much the 
more. So much the more.” 

Both in his sister’s presence, and after she 
had left the room, the whelp took no pains 
to hide his contempt for Mr. Bounderby, 
whenever he could indulge it without the 
observation of that independent man, by 
making wry faces, or shutting one eye. With- 
out responding to these telegraphic commu- 
nications, Mr. Harthouse encouraged him 
much in the course of the evening, and 
showed an unusual liking for him. At last, 
when he rose to return to his hotel, and was 
a little doubtful whether he knew the way 
by night, the whelp immediately proffered 
his services as a guide, and turned out with 
him to escort him thither. 

CHAPTER XIX. 

It was very remarkable that a young gen- 
tleman who had been brought up under one 
continuous system of unnatural restraint, 
should be a hypocrite ; but it was certainly 
the case with Tom. It was very strange 
that a young gentleman who had never 
been left to his own guidance for five conse- 
cutive minutes, should be incapable at last of 
governing himself ; but so it was with Tom. 
It was altogether unaccountable that a 
young gentleman whose imagination had 
been strangled in his cradle, should be still 


inconvenienced by its ghost in the form of 
grovelling sensualities ; but such a monster, 
beyond all doubt was Tom. 

“ Do you smoke?” asked Mr. James Hart- 
house, when they came to the hotel. 

“ I believe you !” said Tom. 

He could do no less than ask Tom up ; 
and Tom could do no less than go up. What 
with a cooling drink adapted to the weather, 
but not so weak as cool ; and what with a 
rarer tobacco than was to be bought in those 
parts ; Tom was soon in a highly free and 
easy state at his end of the sofa, and more 
than ever disposed to admire his new friend 
at the other end. 

Tom blew his smoke aside, after he had 
been smoking a little while, and took an 
observation of his friend. “ He don’t seem 
to care about his dress,” thought Tom, “ and 
yet how capitally he does it. What an easy 
swell he is !” 

Mr. James Harthouse, happening to catch 
Tom’s eye, remarked that he drank nothing, 
and filled his glass with his own negligent 
hand. 

“ Thank’ee,” said Tom. “Thank’ee. Well, 
Mr. Harthouse, I hope you have had. about 
a dose of old Bounderby to-night.” Tom 
said this with one eye shut up again, and 
looking over his glass knowingly, at his 
entertainer. 

“A very good fellow indeed!” returned 
Mr. James Harthouse. 

“You think so, don’t you?” said Tom. 
And shut up his eye again. 

Mr. James Harthouse smiled ; and rising 
from his end of the sofa, and lounging with 
his back against the chimney-piece, so that he 
stood before the empty fire-grate, as he 
smoked in front of Tom, and looking down at 
him observed : 

“ What a comical brother-in-law you are !” 

“ What a comical brother-in-law old Boun- 
derby is, I think you mean,” said Tom. 

“ You are a piece of caustic, Tom,” retorted 
Mr. James Harthouse. 

There was something so very agreeable in 
being so intimate with such a waistcoat ; in 
being called Tom, in such an intimate way, 
by such a voice ; in being on such off-hand 
terms so soon, with such a man ; that Tom 
was uncommonly pleased with himself. 

“ Oh ! I don’t care for old Bounderby,” 
said he, “ if you mean that. I have always 
called old Bounderby by the same name 
when I have talked about him, and I have 
always thought of him in the same way. I 
am not going to begin, to be polite now, 
about old Bounderby. It would be rather 
late in the day.” 

“Don’t mind me,” returned James; “but 
take care when his wife is by, you know.” 

“His wife?” said Tom. “My sister Loo? 
0 yes !” And he laughed and took a little 
more of the cooling drink. 

James Harthouse continued to lounge in 
the same place and attitude,, smoking his 


f 


HARD TIMES. 


49 


cigar in his own easy way, and looking 
pleasantly at the whelp, as if he knew himself 
to be a kind of agreeable demon who had only 
to hover over him, and he must give up his 
whole soul if required. It certainly did seem 
that the whelp yielded to this influence. 
He looked at his companion sneakingly, 
he looked at him admiringly, he looked at 
him boldly, and put up one leg on the sofa. 

t; My sister Loo?” said Tom. “ She never 
cared for old Bounderby.” 

“ That’s the past tense, Tom,” returned 
Mr. James Harthouse, striking the ash from 
his cigar with his little finger. “We are in 
the present tense, now.” 

“ Verb neuter, not to care. Indicative 
mood,- present tense. First person singular, 
I do not care ; second person singular, thou 
dost not care ; third person singular, she does 
not care,” returned Tom. 

“Good! Very quaint!” said his friend. 
“ Though you don’t mean it.” 

“ But I do mean it,” cried Tom. “ Upon my 
honor ! Why, you won’t tell me, Mr. Hart- 
house, that you really suppose my sister 
Loo does care for old Bounderby.” 

“ My dear fellow,” returned the other, 
“what am I bound to suppose, when I find 
two married people living in harmony and 
happiness?” 

Tom had by this time got both his legs on 
the sofa. If his second leg had not been 
already there when he was called my dear 
fellow, he would have put it up at that great 
stage of the conversation. Feeling it neces- 
sary to do something then, he stretched him- 
self out at greater length, and, reclining with 
the back of his head on the end of the sofa, 
and smoking with an infinite assumption of 
negligence, turned his common face, and not 
too sober eyes, towards the face looking down 
upon him so carelessly yet so potently. 

“ You know our governor, Mr. Harthouse,” 
said Tom, “ and therefore you needn’t be 
surprised that Loo married old Bounderby. 
She never had a lover, and the governor 
proposed old Bounderby, and she took him.” 

“ Very dutiful in your interesting sister,” 
said Mr. James Harthouse. 

•‘Yes, but she wouldn’t have been as 
dutiful and it would not have come off as 
easily,” returned the whelp, “if it hadn’t been 
for me.” 

The tempter merely lifted his eyebrows : 
but the whelp was obliged to go on. 

“ I persuaded her,” he said, with an edi- 
fying air of superiority. “ I was stuck 
into old Bounderby’s bank (where I never 
wanted to be), and I knew I should get 
into scrapes there, if she put old Boun- 
derby’s pipe out 5 so I told her my wishes, 
and she came into them. She would do any- 
thing for me. It was very game of her, 
wasn’t it ?” 

“ It was charming, Tom !” 

“ Not that it was altogether so important 
to her as it was to me,” continued Tom coolly, 


“ because my liberty and comfort, and 
perhaps my getting on, depended on it ; and 
she had no other lover, and staying at 
home was like staying in jail — especially when 
I was gone. It wasn’t as if she gave up 
another lover for old Bounderby ; but still it 
was a good thing in her.” 

“ Perfectly delightful. And she gets on so 
placidly.” 

“ Oh,” returned Tom, with contemptuous 
patronage, “ she’s a regular girl. A girl 
can get on anywhere. She has settled down 
to the life, and she don’t mind. It does 
just as well as another. Besides, though Loo 
is a girl, she’s not a common sort of girl. She 
can shut herself up within herself, and think 
— as I have often known her sit and watch 
the fire — for an hour at a stretch.” 

“ Ay, ay ! Has resources of her own,” 
said Harthouse, smoking quietly. 

“ Not so much of that as you may suppose,” 
returned Tom ; “ for our governor had her 
crammed with all sorts of dry bones and 
sawdust. It’s his system.” 

“ Formed his daughter on his own model 1 ” 
suggested Harthouse. 

“ His daughter ? Ah ! and everybody else. 
Why, he formed Me that way,” said Tom. 

“ Impossible !” 

“ He did though,” said Tom, shaking his 
head. “ I mean to say, Mr. Harthouse, that 
when I first left home and went to old 
Bounderby’s I was as flat as a warming-pan, 
and knew no more about life than any oyster 
does.” 

“ Come, Tom ! I oan hardly believe that. 
A joke’s a joke.” 

“ Upon my soul !” said the whelp. “ I am 
serious ; I am indeed !” He smoked with 
great gravity and dignity for a little while, 
and then added in a highly complacent tone, 
“ Oh ! I have picked up a little, since. I don’t 
deny that. But I have done it myself ; no 
thanks to the governor.” 

“ And your intelligent sister ?” 

“ My intelligent sister is about where she 
was. She used to complain to me that she 
had nothing to fall back upon, that girls 
usually fall back upon 5 and I don’t see how 
she is to have got over that since. But she 
don’t mind,” he sagaciously added, puffing at 
his cigar again. “ Girls can always get on, 
somehow.” 

“ Calling at the Bank yesterday evening, 
for Mr. Bounderby’s address, I found an 
ancient lady there, who seems to entertain 
great admiration for your sister,” observed 
Mr. J ames Harthouse, throwing away the last 
small remnant of the cigar he had now smoke* 1 
out. 

“ Mother Sparsit ?” said Tom. “ What ! you 
have seen her already, have you ?” 

His friend nodded. Tom took his cigar 
out of his mouth, to shut up his eye (which 
had grown rather unmanageable) with the 
greater expression, and to tap his nose several 
times with his finger. 


50 


HARD TIMES. 


“ Mother Sparsit’s feeling for Loo is more 
than admiration, I should think,” said Tom. 
“ Say affection and devotion. Mother Sparsit 
never set her cap at Bounderby when he was 
a bachelor. Oh no !” 

These were the last words spoken by the 
whelp, before a giddy drowsiness came upon 
him, followed by complete oblivion. He was 
roused from the latter state by an uneasy 
dream of being stirred up with a boot, and 
also of a voice saying : “ Come it’s late. 
Be off!” 

“ Well !” he said, scrambling from the sofa. 
“ I must take my leave of you though. I 
say yours is very good tobacco. But it's 
too mild.” 

“Yes, it’s too mild,” returned his enter- 
tainer. 

“It’s — it’s ridiculously mild,” said Tom. 
“ Where’s the door ? Good night !” 

He had another odd dream of being taken 
by a waiter through a mist, which, after 
giving him some trouble and difficulty, 
resolved itself into the main street, in 
which he stood alone. He then walked 
home pretty easily, though not yet free 
from ail impression of the presence and 
influence of his new friend — as if he were 
lounging somewhere in the air, in the same 
negligent attitude, regarding him with the 
same look. 

The whelp went home, and went to bed. 
If he had had any sense of what he had done 
that night, and had been less of a whelp and 
more of a brother, he might have turned 
short on the road, might have gone down to 
the ill-smelling river that was dyed black, 
might have gone to bed in it for good and 
all, and have curtained his head for ever with 
its filthy waters. 

chapter xx. 

“ Oh my friends, the down-trodden opera- 
tives of Coketown ! Oh my friends and fellow- 
countrymen, the slaves of an iron-handed and 
a grinding despotism ! Oh my friends and fel- 
low-sufferers, and fellow-workmen, and fellow 
men! I tell you that the hour is come, when 
we must rally round one another as One 
united power, and crumble into dust the 
oppressors that too long have fattened upon 
the plunder of our families, upon the sweat of 
our brows, upon the labor of our hands, upon 
the strength of our sinews, upon the God- 
created glorious rights of Humanity, and 
upon the holy and eternal privileges of Bro- 
therhood !” 

“Good !” “ Hear, hear, hear !” “ Hurrah !” 
and other cries, arose in many voices from 
various parts of the densely crowded and 
suffocatingly close Hall, in which the orator, 
perched on a stage, delivered himself of this and 
what other froth and fume he had in him. He 
had declaimed himself into a violent heat, and 
was as hoarse as he was hot. By dint of 
roaring at the top of his voice under a flaring 
gaslight, clenching his fists, knitting his 


brows, setting his teeth, and pounding with 
his arms, he had taken so much out of him 
self by this time, that he was brought to a 
stop and called for a glass of water. 

As he stood there, trying to quench his 
fiery face with his drink of water, the com- 
parison between the orator and the crowd 
of attentive faces turned towards him, was 
extremely to his disadvantage. Judging him 
by Nature’s evidence, he was above the mass in 
very little but the stage on which he stood. In 
many great respects, he was essentially below 
th«m. He w'as not so honest, he was not so 
manly, he was not so good-humored ; he 
substituted cunning for their simplicity, and 
passion for their safe solid sense. An ill- 
made, high-shouldered man, with lowering 
brows, and his features crushed into an 
habitually sour expression, he contrasted 
most unfavorably, even in his mongrel 
dress, with the great body of his hearers 
in their plain working clothes. Strange as 
it always is to consider any assembly in 
the act of submissively resigning itself to 
the dreariness of some complacent person, 
lord or commoner, whom three-fourths of it 
could, by no human means, raise out of 
the slough of inanity to their own intel- 
lectual level, it was particularly strange, and 
it was even particularly affecting, to see this 
crowd of earnest faces, whose honesty in the 
main no competent observer free from bias 
could doubt, so agitated by such a leader. 

Good ! Hear, hear ! Hurrah ! The eager- 
ness, both of attention and intention, ex- 
hibited in all the countenances, made them 
a most impressive sight. There was no care- 
lessness, no languor, no idle curiosity ; none 
of the many shades of indifference to be seen 
in all other assemblies, visible for one mo- 
ment there. That every man felt his condi- 
tion to be, somehow or other, worse than it 
might be ; that every man considered it 
incumbent on him to join the rest, towards 
the making of it better ; that every man felt 
his only hope to be in his allying himself to 
the comrades by whom he was surrounded ; 
and that in this belief, right or wrong (un- 
happily wrong then), the whole of that crowd 
were gravely, deeply, faithfully in earnest ; 
must have been as plain to any one who 
chose to see what was there, as the bare 
beams of the roof, and the whitened brick 
walls. Nor could any such spectator fail to 
know in his own breast that these men, through 
their very delusions, showed great qualities, 
susceptible of being turned to the happiest 
and best account ; and that to pretend (on 
the strength of sweeping axioms, howsoever 
cut and dried) that they went astray wholly 
without cause, and of their own irrational 
wills, was to pretend that there could bo 
smoke without fire, death without birth, 
harvest without seed, anything or everything 
produced from nothing. 

The orator having refreshed himself, wiped 
his corrugated forehead from left to right 


HARD TIMES. 


51 


several times with his handkerchief folded 
into a pad, and concentrated all his revived 
forces in a sneer of great disdain and bitter- 
ness. 

“ But, oh my friends and brothers ! Oh 
men and Englishmen, the down-trodden 
operatives of Coketown ! What shall we say 
of that man — that working-man, that I 
should find it necessary so to libel the 
glorious name — who, being practically and 
well acquainted with the grievances and wrongs 
of you, the injured pith and marrow of this land, 
and having heard you with a noble and majestic 
unanimity that will make tyrants tremble, 
resolve for to subscribe to the funds of the 
United Aggregate Tribunal, and to abide by 
the injunctions issued by that body for your 
benefit, whatever they may be — what, I ask 
you, will you say of that working man, since 
such I must acknowledge him to be, who, at 
such a time deserts his post, and sells his 
flag ; who, at such a time, turns a traitor and 
a craven and a recreant ; who, at such a time, 
is not ashamed to make to you the dastardly 
and humiliating avowal that he will hold 
himself aloof, and will not be one of those 
associated in the gallant stand for Freedom 
and for Right?” 

The assembly was divided at this point. 
There were some groans and hisses, but the 
general sense of honor was much too strong 
for the condemnation of a man unheard. 
“ Be sure, you’re right, Slackbridge !” “ Put 

him up!” “Let’s hear him!” Such things 
were said on many sides. Finally, one strong 
voice called out, “ Is the man here ? If the 
man’s here, Slackbridge, let’s hear the man 
himseln, ’stead o’ yo’.” Which was received 
with a round of applause. 

Slackbridge, the orator, looked about him 
with a withering smile ; and holding out his 
right hand at arm’s length (as the manner of 
all S-lackbridges is), to still the thundering sea,, 
-waited until there was a profound silence. 

“Oh my friends and fellow men!” said 
Slackbridge then, shaking his head with 
violent scorn, “ I do not wonder that you, the 
prostrate sons of labor, are incredulous of 
the existence of such a man. But he who 
sold his birthright for a mess of pottage ex- 
isted, and Judas Iscariot existed, and Castle- 
reagh existed, and this man exists!” 

Here, a brief press and confusion near the 
stage, ended in the man himself standing at 
the orator’s side before the concourse. He 
was pale and a little moved in the face — his 
lips especially showed it ; but he stood quiet, 
with his left hand at his chin, waiting to be 
heard. There was a chairman to regulate 
the proceedings, and this functionary now took 
the case into his own hands. 

“ My friends,” said he, “ by virtue o’ my 
office as your president, I ashes o’ our friend 
Slackbridge, who may be a little over hetter 
in this business, to take his seat, whiles this 
Taan Stephen Blackpool is heern. You all 

''■ow this man Stephen &iackpool. You 


known him awlung o’ his misfort’ns, and his 
good name.” 

With that, the chairman shook him frankly 
by the hand, and sat down again. Slack- 
bridge likewise sat down, wiping his hot 
forehead — always from left to right, and never 
the reverse way. 

“ My friends,” Stephen began, in the midst 
of a dead calm ; “ I ha’ hed what’s been spok’n 
o’ me, and ’tis lickly that I shan’t mend it. 
But I ’d liefer you ’d hearn the truth con- 
cernin myseln, fro my lips than fro onny 
other man’s, though I never cud’n speak 
afore so monny, wi’out bein moydert and 
muddled.” 

Slackbridge shook his head as if he would 
shake it off, in his bitterness. 

“ I ’m th’ one single Hand in Bounderby’s 
mill, o’ a’ the men theer, as don’t coom in wi’ 
th’ proposed reg’lations. I canna’ coom in 
wi’ ’em. My friends. I doubt their doin’t yo 
onny good. Licker they ’ll do yo hurt.” 

Slackbridge laughed, folded his arms, and 
frowned sarcastically. 

“ But ’t an’t sommuch for that as I stands 
out. If that were aw, I'd coom in wi’ th’ rest. 
But I ha’ my reasons — mine, yo see — for 
being hindered ; not on’y now, but awlus — 
awlus — life long!” 

Slackbridge jumped up and stood beside 
him, gnashing and tearing. “ Oh my friends, 
what but this did I tell you? Oh my fellow- 
countrymen, what warning but this did I give 
you ? And how shows this recreant conduct 
in a man on whom unequal laws are known 
to have fallen heavy ? Oh you Englishmen, 
I ask you how does this subornation show in 
one of yourselves, who is thus consenting to 
his own undoing and to yours, and to your 
children’s and your children’s children’s ?” 

There was some applause, and some crying of 
Shame upon the man ; but the greater part of 
the audience were quiet. They looked at 
Stephen’s worn face, rendered more pathetic 
by the homely emotions it evinced ; and, in 
the kindness of their nature, they were more 
sorry than indignant. 

“ ’Tis this Delegate’s trade for t’ speak,” 
said Stephen, “an he’s paid for’t, an lie 
knows his work. Let him keep to’t. Let 
him give no heed to' what I ha had’n to bear. 
That’s not for him. That’s not for nobbody 
but me.” 

There was a propriety, not to say a dignity 
in these words, that made the hearers yet 
more quiet and attentive. The same strong 
voice called out, “ Slackbridge, let the man bo 
heern, and howd thee tongue !” Theu the 
place was wonderfully still. 

“ My brothers,” said Stephen, whose low 
voice was distinctly heard, “ and my fellow 
workmen — for that yo are to me, though not, 
as I knows on, to this delegate heer — I ha 
but a word to sen, and I could sen nommore 
if I was to speak till Strike o’ day. I know 
weel, aw what’s afore me. I know weel that 
yo are aw resolved to ha nommore ado wi’ a 


52 


HARD TIMES. 


man who is not wi’ yo in thig matther. I 
know weel <tfiat if I was a lyin parisht i’ tli’ 
road, yo’d feel it right to pass me by as 
a forrenner and stranger. What I ha getn, 
I mun mak th’ best on.’’ 

“ Stephen Blackpool,” said the chairman, 
rising, “think on’t agen. Think on’t once 
agen, lad, afore thour’t shunned by aw owd 
friends.” 

There was an universal murmur to the 
same effect, though no man articulated a 
word. Every eye was fixed on Stephen’s 
face. To repent of his determination, would 
be to take a load from all their minds. 
He looked around him, and knew that 
it was so. Not a grain of anger with them 
was in his heart ; he knew them, far below 
their surface weaknesses and misconceptions, 
as no one but their fellow laborer could. 

“I ha thowt on’t above a bit, sir. I 
simply canna coom in. I mun go th’ way as 
lays afore me. I mun tak my leave o’ aw 
beer.” 

He made a sort of reverence to them by 
holding up his arms, and stood for the 
moment in that attitude : not speaking until 
they slowly dropped at his sides. 

“ Monny’s the pleasant word as soom heer 
has epok’n wi’ me ; monny’s the face I see 
heer, as I first seen when I were yoong and 
lighter heart’n than now. I ha never had no 
fratch afore, sin ever I were born, wi’ any o’ my 
like ; Gonnows I ha’ none now that’s o’ my 
makin’. Yo’ll ca’ me traitor and that — yo 
I mean t’ say,” addressing Slackbridge, 
“but ’tis easier to ca’ then mak’ out. So 
let be.” 

He had moved away a pace or two to 
come down from the platform, when he 
remembered something he had not said, and 
returned again. 

“Haply,” he said, turning his furrowed 
face slowly about, that he might as it were 
individually address the whole audience, 
tliosd both near and distant; “haply, when 
this question has been tak’n up and discoosed, 
there’ll be a threat to turn out if I’m let to 
work among yo. I hope I shall die ere ever 
such a time cooms, and I shall work solitary 
among yo unless it cooms — truly, I mun 
do’t, my friends ; not to brave you, but to 
live. I ha nobbut work to live by ; and 
wheerever I can go, I who ha worked sin I 
were no heighth at aw, in Coketown heer ? I 
mak’ no complaints o’ bein turned to the wa’, 
o’ being outcasten and overlooken fro this 
time forrard, but I hope I shall be let to 
work. If tfiere'is any right for me at aw, my 
friends, I think ’tis that.” 

Not a word was spoken. Not a sound was 
audible in the building, but the slight rustle 
of men moving a little apart, all along the 
centre of the room, to open a means of 
passing out, to the man with whom they had 
all bound themselves to renounoe companion- 
ship. Looking at no one, and going his way 
with a lowly steadiness upon him that 


asserted nothing and sought nothing, Old 
Stephen, with all his troubles on his head, 
left the scene. 

Then Slackbridge, who had kept his 
oratorical arm extended during the going 
out, as if he were repressing with infinite 
solicitude and by a wonderful moral power 
the vehement passions of the multitude, 
applied himself to raising their spirits. Had 
not the Roman Brutus, oh my British 
countrymen, condemned his son to death ; 
and had not the Spartan mothers, oh my 
soon to be victorious friends, driven their 
flying children on the points of their enemies’ 
swords? Then was it not the sacred 
duty of the men of Coketown, with fore- 
fathers before them, an admiring world 
in company with them, and a posterity to 
come after them, to hurl out traitors from 
the tents they had pitched in 9 sacred and 
a Godlike cause? The winds of Heaven 
answered Yes ; and bore Yes, east, west, 
north and south. And consequently three 
cheers for the United Aggregate Tribunal ! 

Slackbridge acted as fugleman, and gave 
the time. The multitude of doubtful faces 
(a little conscience stricken) brightened at 
the sound, and took it up. Private feeling 
must yield to the common cause. Hurrah! 
The roof yet vibrated with the cheering, when 
the assembly dispersed. 

Thus easily did Stephen Blackpool fall into 
the loneliest of lives, the life of solitude 
among a familiar crowd. The stranger in 
the land who looks into .ten thousand faces 
for some answering look and never finds it, is 
in cheering society as compared with him 
who passes ten averted faces daily, that were 
once the countenances of friends. Such ex- 
perience was to be Stephen’s now in every 
waking moment of his life ; at his work, on 
his way to it and from it, at his door, at his 
window, everywhere. By general consent, 
they even avoided that side of the street ou 
which he habitually walked ; and left it, of all 
the working men, to him only. 

He had been for many years, a quiet, 
silent man, associating but little with other 
men, and used to companionship with his 
own thoughts. He had never known before, 
the strength of the want in his heart for the 
frequent recognition of a nod, a look, a word ; 
or the immense amount of relief that had 
been poured into it by drops, through such 
small means. It was even harder than he 
could have believed possible, to separate in 
his own conscience his abandonment by all 
his fellows, from a baseless sense of shame and 
disgrace. 

The first four days of his endurance were 
days so long and heavy, that he began to be 
appalled by the prospect before him. Not 
only did he see no Rachael all the time, but 
he avoided every chance of seeing her ; for, 
although he knew that the prohibition did 
not yet formally extend to the women 
wmrking in the factories, he found that some 


HARD TIMES. 


53 


of them with whom he was acquainted were 
changed to him, and he feared to try others, 
and dreaded that Rachael might be even 
singled out from the rest if she were seen in 
his company. So, he had been quite alone 
during the four days, and had spoken to no 
one, when as he was leaving his work at 
night, a young man of a very light complexion 
accosted him in the street. 

“Your name’s Blackpool, ain’t it?” said 
the young man. 

Stephen colored to find himself with his 
hat in his hand, in his gratitude for being 
spoken to, or in the suddenness of it, or both. 
He made a feint of adjusting the lining, and 
said, “ Yes.” 

“You are the Hand they have sent to 
Coventry, I mean?” said Bitzer, the very 
light young man in question. 

Stephen answered “Yes,” again. 

“ I supposed so, from their all appearing to 
keep away from you. Mr. Bounderby wants 
to speak to you. You know his house, don’t 
you?” 

Stephen said “ Yes,” again. 

“ Then go straight up there, will you ?” 
said Bitzer. “ You’re expected, and have 
only to tell the servant it’s you. I belong to 
the Bank ; so, if you go straight up without 
me (I was sent to fetch you), you’ll save me 
a walk.” 

Stephen, whose way had been in the con- 
trary direction, turned about, and betook 
himself as in duty bound, to the red brick 
castle of the giant Bounderby. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

“ Well Stephen,” said Bounderby, in his 
windy manner, “what’s this I hear? 
What have these pests of the earth been doing 
to you ? Come in, and speak up.” 

It was into the drawing-room that he was 
thus bidden. A tea-table was set out ; and Mr. 
Bounderby’s young wife, and her brother, and 
a great gentleman from London, were present. 
To whom Stephen made his obeisance, 
closing the door and standing near it, with 
his hat in his hand. 

“ This is the man I was telling you about, 
Harthouse,” said Mr. Bounderby. The gen- 
tleman he addressed, who was talking to Mrs. 
Bounderby on the sofa, got up, saying in an 
indolent way, “ Oh really?” and dawdled to 
the hearthrug where Mr. Bounderby stood. 

“ Now,” said Bounderby, “ speak up !” 

After the four days he had passed, this 
address fell rudely and discordantly on 
Stephen’s ear. Besides being a rough hand- 
ling of his wounded mind, it seemed to 
assume that he really was the self-interested 
deserter he had been called. 

“ What were it, sir,” said Stephen, “ as yo 
were pleased to want wi’ me ?” 

“Why I have told you.” returned Bounderby, 
“ Speak up like a man, since you are a man, 
and tell us about yourself and this Combina- 
tion.” 


“Wi’ yor pardon, sir,” said Stephen 
Blackpool, “ I ha’ nowt tb sen about it.” 

Mr. Bounderby, who was always more or 
less like a Wind, finding something in his way 
here, began to blow at it directly. 

“ Now, look here, Harthouse,” said he, 
“ here’s a specimen of ’em. When this man w r as 
here once before., I warned this man against 
the mischievous strangers who are always 
about — and who ought to be hanged wher- 
ever they are found — and I told this man that 
he was going in the wrong direction. Now, 
would you believe it, that although they have 
put their mark upon him, he is such a slave 
to them still, that he’s afraid to open his lips 
about them ?” 

“ I sed as I had nowt to sen, sir ; not as I 
was fearfo’ o’ openin’ my lips.” 

“ You said. Ah ! I know what you said ; 
more than that, I know w'hat you mean, you 
see. Not always the same thing, by the 
Lord Harry! Quite different things. You 
had better tell us at once, that that fellow 
Slackbridge is not in the town, stirring up 
the people to mutiny ; and that he is not a 
regular qualified leader of the people : that is, 
a most confounded scoundrel. You had 
better tell us so at once ; you can’t deceive 
me. You want to tell us so. Why don’t 
you?” 

“ I’m as sooary as yo, sir, when the 
people’s leaders is bad,” said Stephen, shaking 
his head. “ They taks such as offers. Haply 
’tis na’ the sma’est o’ their misfortuns when 
they can get no better.” 

The wind began to be boisterous. 

“ Now, you’ll think this pretty well, Hart- 
house,” said Mr. Bounderby. “ You’ll think 
this tolerably strong. You’ll say, upon my soul 
this is a tidy specimen of what my friends 
have to deal with ; but this is nothing, sir ! 
You shall hear me ask this man a question. 
Pray, Mr. Blackpool” — wind springing up 
very fast — “ may I take the liberty of asking 
you how it happens that you refused to be 
in this Combination?” 

“ How ’t happens?” 

“ Ah !” ' said Mr. Bounderby, with his 
thumbs in the arms of his coat, and jerking 
his head and shutting his eyes in confidence 
with the opposite wall : “ how it happens.” 

“ I’d leefer not coom to’t sir ; but sin you 
put th’ question — an not want’n t’ be ill- 
manner’n — I’ll answer. I ha passed a 
promess.” 

“Not to me, you know,” said Bounderby. 
(Gusty weather with deceitful calms. One 
now prevailing). 

“ O no, sir. Not to yo.” 

“ As for me, any consideration for me has 
had just nothing at all to do with it,” said 
Bounderby, still in confidence with the wall. 
“ If only Josiah Bounderby of Coketown 
had been in question, you would have joined 
and made no bones about it?” 

“ Why yes, sir. ’Tis true.” 

“ Though he knows,” said Mr. Bounderby, 


V 


HARD TIMES. 


54 


now blowing a gale, “ that these are a set of 
rascals and rebels whom transportation is too 
good for ! Now, Mr. Harthouse, you have been 
knocking about in the world some time. 
Did you ever meet with anything like that 
man out of this blessed country ?” And Mr. 
Bounderby pointed him out for inspection, with 
an angry finger. 

“Nay, ma’am,” said Stephen Blackpool, 
staunchly protesting against the words that 
had been used, and instinctively addressing 
himself to Louisa, after glancing at her face. 
“Not rebels, nor yet rascals. Nowt o’ th’ 
kind, ma’am, nowt o’ th’ kind. They’ve not 
doon me a kindness, ma’am, as I know 
and feel. But there’s not a dozen men 
among ’em, ma’am — a dozen? Not six — 
but what believes as he has doon his duty by 
the rest and by himseln. God forbid as I, that 
ha known an had’n experience o’ those men 
aw my life — I, that ha ett’n an droonken 
wi’ em, an seet’n wi’ em, an toil’n wi’ em, 
and lov’n ’em, should fail fur to stan by ’em 
wi’ the truth, let ’em ha doon to me what 
they may !” 

He spoke with the rugged earnestness of 
his place and character deepened perhaps 
by a proud consciousness that he was faithful 
to his class under all their mistrust ; but he 
fully remembered where he was, and did not 
even raise his voice. 

“No, ma’am, no. They’re true to one 
another, faithfo’ to one another, fection- 
ate to one another, e’en to death. Be poor 
amoong ’em, be sick amoong ’em, grieve 
amoong ’em for onny o’ th’ monny causes that 
carries grief to the poor man’s door, an 
they’ll be tender wi’ yo, gentle wi’ yo, com- 
fortable wi’ yo, Chrisen wi’ yo. Be sure o’ 
that, ma’am. They’d be riven to bits, ere 
ever they’d be different.” 

“In short,” said Mr. Bounderby, “ it’s be- 
cause they are so full of virtues that they 
have turned you adrift. Go through with it 
while you are about it. Out with it.” 

“ How ’tis, ma’am,” resumed Stephen, ap- 
pearing still to find his natural refuge in 
Louisa’s face, “ that what is best in us folk, 
seems to turn us most to trouble an misfort’n 
an mistake, I dunno. But ’tis so. I know 
’tis, as I know the heavens is over me ahint 
the smoke. We’re patient too, an wants in 
general to do right. An’ I canna think the 
fawt is aw wi’ us.” 

“Now, my friend,” said Mr. Bounderby, 
whom he could not have exasperated more, 
quite unconscious of it though he was, 
than by seeming to appeal to any one else, 
“ if you will favor me with your attention for 
half a minute, I should like to have a word or 
two with you. You said just now, that you 
had nothing to tell us about this business. 
You are quite sure of that, before we go any 
further ?” 

“ Sir, I am sure on’t.” 

“ Here’s a gentleman from London pre- 
sent,” Mr. Bounderby made a back-handed 


point at Mr. James Harthouse with his thumb, 
“ a Parliament gentleman. I should like 
him to hear a short bit of dialogue between 
you and me, instead of taking the substance 
of it— for I know precious well, beforehand, 
what it will be ; nobody knows better than 
I do, take notice ! — instead of receiving it on 
trust, from my mouth.” 

Stephen bent his head to the gentleman 
from London, and showed a rather more 
troubled mind than usual. He turned his 
eyes involuntarily to his former refuge, but 
at a look from that quarter (expressive though 
instantaneous) he settled them on Mr. Boun- 
derby’s face. 

“ Now, what do you complain of?” asked 
Mr. Bounderby. 

“I ha’ not coom heer, sir,” Stephen re- 
minded him, “ to complain. I coom for that 
I were sent for.” 

“What,” repeated Mr. Bounderby, folding 
his arms, “ do you people, in a general way, 
complain of?” 

Stephen looked at him with some little 
irresolution for a moment, and then seemed 
to make up his mind. 

“Sir, I were never good at showin o’t, 
though I ha had’n my share in feeling o’t. 
’Deed we are in a muddle, sir. Look round 
town — so rich as ’tis — and see th’ numbers o’ 
people as has been broughten into bein heer, 
fur to weave, an to card, an to piece out a 
livin, aw the same one way, somehows, 
twixt their cradles an their graves. Look 
how we live, and wheer we live, an in what 
numbers, an by what chances, an wi’ what 
sameness ; and look how the mills is awlus a 
goin, an how they never works us no nigher 
to onny dis’ant object — ceptin awlus, Death. 
Look how you considers of us, an writes of us, 
an talks of us, an goes up wi’ yor deputations 
to Secretaries o’ State ’bout us, an how yo 
are awlus right, an how we are awlus wrong, 
and never had’n no reason in us sin ever we 
were born. Look how this ha growen an 
growen, sir, bigger an bigger, broader an 
broader, harder an harder, fro year to year, 
fro generation unto generation. Who can look 
on’t sir. and fairly tell a man ’tis not a 
muddle ?” 

“ Of course,” said Mr. Bounderby. “ Now 
perhaps you’ll let the gentleman know, how 
you would set this muddle (as you’re so fond 
of calling it) to rights.” 

“ I dunno, sir. I canna be expecten to’t. 
’Tis not me as should be looken to for that, 
sir. ’Tis them as is put ower me, and ower aw 
the rest of us. What do they tak upon 
themsen, sir, if not to do’t ?” 

“ I’ll tell you something towards it, at any 
rate,” returned Mr. Bounderby. “ We will 
make an example of half a dozen Slack- 
bridges. We’ll indict the blackguards for 
felony, and get ’em shipped off to penal set- 
tlements.” 

Stephen gravely shook his head. 

“Don’t tell me we won’t, man,” said Mr. 


HARD TIMES. 


55 


Bounderby, by this time blowing a hurricane. 

“ because we will, I tell you !” 

“ Sir,” returned Stephen, with the quiet 
confidence of absolute certainty, “if yo was 
t’ tak a hundred Slackbridges — aw as there 
is, an aw the number ten times towd — an 
was t’ sew ’em up in separate sacks, an 
sink 'em in the deepest ocean as were made 
ere ever dry land coom to be, yo’d leave the 
muddle just wheer ’tis. Mischeevous stran- 
gers !” said Stephen, with an anxious smile ; 

“ when ha we not heern, I am sure, sin ever we 
can call to mind, o’ th’ mischeevous strangers! 
’Tis not by them the trouble’s made, sir. ’Tis 
not wi’ them ’t commences. I ha no favor 
for ’em — I ha no reason to favor ’em — but 
’tis hopeless an useless to dream o’ takin 
them fro their trade, ’stead o’ takin their 
trade fro them ! Aw that’s now about me in 
this room were heer afore I coom, an will 
be heer when I am gone. Put that clock 
aboard a ship an pack it off to Norfolk 
Island, an the time will go on just the same. 
So ’tis wi’ Slackbridge every bit.” 

Reverting for a moment to his former 
refuge, he observed a cautionary movement 
of her eyes towards the door. Stepping back, 
he put his hand upon the lock. But, he had 
not spoken out of his own will and desire 5 
and he felt it in his heart a noble return for 
his late injurious treatment, to be faithful 
to the last to those who had repudiated 
him. He stayed to finish what was in liis mind. 

“ Sir, I canna, wi’ my little learning an my 
common way, tell the genelman what will 
better aw this — though some working-men 0’ 
this town could, above my powers — but I can 
tell him what I know will never do't. The 
strong hand will never do't. Vict’ry and 
triumph will never do’t. Agreein fur to make 
one side unnat’rally awlus and for ever right, 
and toother side unnat-rally awlus and for ever 
wrong, will never, never do’t. Nor yet lettin 
alone will never do’t. Let thousands upon 
thousands alone, aw leadin the like lives 
and aw faw’en into the like muddle, and they 
will be as one, an yo will be as anoother, wi’ 
a black unpassable world betwixt yo, just as 
long or short a time as sitcli like misery can 
last. Not drawin nigh to folk, wi’ kindness 
an patience and cheery ways, that so draws 
nigh to one another in their monny troubles, 
and so cherishes one another in their distresses 
wi’ what they need themseln — like, I humbly 
believe, as no people the gentleman ha seen in 
aw his travels can beat — will never do’t till 
th’ Sun turns t’ ice. Last 0’ aw, ratin ’em as 
so' much Power, and reg’latin ’em as if they 
was figures in a soom, or machines: wi’out 
loves and likeins, wi’out memories and in- 
clinations, wi’out souls to weary an souls to 
hope — when aw goes quiet, draggin on wi’ 
’em as if they’d nowt 0’ th’ kind, an when 
aw goes onquiet, reproaching ’em fur their 
want 0’ sitch humanly feelins in their dealins 
wi’ yo— this will never do’t, sir, till God’s 
work is onmade.” 


Stephen stood with the open door in his 
hand, waiting to know if anything more were 
expected of him. 

“ Just stop a moment,” said Mr. Bounderby, 
excessively red in the face. “ I told you, the 
last time you were here with a grievance, 
that you had better turn about and come 
out of that. And I also told you, if you 
remember, that I was up to the* gold spoon 
look-out.” 

“ I were not up to’t myseln, sir : I do assure 
yo.” 

“ Now, it’s clear to me,” said Mr. Bounder- 
by, “ that you are one of those chaps who have 
always got a grievance. And you go about, 
sowing it and raising crops. That’s the busi- 
ness of your life, my friend.” 

Stephen shook his head, mutely protesting 
that indeed he had other business to do for 
his life. 

“ You are such a waspish, raspish, ill-con- 
ditioned chap, you see,” said Mr. Bounderby, 

“ that even your own Union, the men who 
know you best, will have nothing to do with 
you. I never thought those fellows could be 
right in anything ; but I tell you what ! I so 
far go along with them for a novelty, that I’ll 
have nothing to do with you either.” 

Stephen raised his eyes quickly to his face. 

“ You can finish off what you’re at,” said 
Mr. Bounderby, with a meaning nod, “ and 
then go elsewhere.” 

“ Sir, yo know weel,” said Stephen express- 
ively, “ that if I canna get work wi’ yo, I canna 
get it elsewheer.” 

The reply was, “ What I know, I know ; 
and what you know, you know. I have no 
more to say about it.” 

Stephen glanced at Louisa again, but her 
eyes were raised to his no more ; therefore, 
with a sigh, and saying, barely above his 
breath, “ Heaven help us aw in this world !” 
he departed. 

CHAPTER XXII. 

It was falling dark when Stephen came out 
of Mr. Bounderby’s house. The shadows of 
night had gathered so fast, that he did * not 
look about him when he closed the door, but 
plodded straight along the street. Nothing 
was further from his thoughts than the curious 
old woman he had encountered on his previous 
visit to the same house, when he heard a step 
behind him that he knew, and, turning, saw 
her in Rachael’s company. 

He saw Rachael first, as he had heard her 
only. 

“ Ah Rachael, my dear ! Missus, thou wi’ 
her !” 

“ Well, and now you are surprised to be 
sure, and with reason I must say,” the old 
woman returned. “ Here I am again, you 
see.” 

“But how wi’ Rachael?” said ‘Stephen, 
falling into their step, walking between them, 
and looking from the one to the other. 

“ Why, I come to be with this good lass 


56 


HARD TIMES. 


pretty much as I came to be with you,” said 
the old woman cheerfully, taking the reply 
upon herself. “ My visiting time is later this 
year than usual, for I have been rather 
troubled with snortness of breath, and so put 
it off till the weather was fine and warm. For 
the same reason I don’t make all my journey 
in one day, but divide it into two days, and 
get a bed to-night at the Travellers’ Coffee 
House down by the railroad (a nice clean 
house), and go back, Parliamentary, at six 
in the morning. Well, but what has this to 
do with this good lass, says you ? I’m going 
to tell you. I have heard of Mr. Bounderby 
being married. I read it in the paper, where 
it looked grand — oh, it looked fine!” the 
old woman dwelt on it with strange enthu- 
siasm ; “ and I want to see his wife. I have 
never seen her yet. Now, if you’ll believe 
me, she hasn’t come out of that house since 
noon to-day. So, not to give her up too 
easily, I was waiting about, a little last bit 
more, when I passed close to this good lass 
two or three times ; and her face being so 
friendly I spoke to her, and she spoke to me. 
There!” said the old woman to Stephen, “you 
can make all the rest out for yourself now, a 
deal shorter than I can, I dare say !” 

Once again, Stephen had to conquer an in- 
stinctive propensity to dislike this old woman, 
though her manner was as honest and simple 
as a manner possibly could be. With a gen- 
tleness that was as natural to him as he knew 
it to be to Rachael, he pursued the subject 
that interested her in her old age. 

“Well, missus,” said he, “I ha seen the 
lady, and she were yoong an hansom. Wi’ 
fine dark thinkiu eyes, and a still way, Rachael, 
as I hae never seen the like on.” 

“Young and handsome. Yes!” cried the 
old woman, quite delighted. “ As bonny as a 
rose ! And what a happy wife !” 

“Aye, missus, I suppose she be,” said 
Stephen. But with a doubtful glance at 
Rachael. 

“ Suppose she be ? She must be. She’s 
your master’s wife,” returned the old woman. 

Stephen nodded assent. “ Though as to 
master,” said he, glancing again at Rachael, 
“ not master onny more. That’s aw enden 
twixthim and me.” 

“ Have you left his work, Stephen ?” asked 
Rachael, anxiously and quickly. 

“ Why, Rachael,” he replied, “ whether I ha 
left’n his work, or whether his work ha left’n 
me, cooms t’ th’ same. His work and me are 
parted. ; Tis as weel so — better, I were 
th inking when y o come up wi’ me. It would ha 
brought’n trouble upon trouble if I had stayed 
theere. Haply ’tis a kindness to monny that 
i go ; haply ’tis a kindness to myseln ; any- 
ways it mun be done. I mun turn my face 
fro Coketown fur th’ time, and seek a fort’n, 
dear, by beginning fresh.” 

“ Where will you go, Stephen ?” 

“ I donno t’night,” said he, lifting off his 
hat, and smoothing his thin hair with the flat 


of his hand. “ But I’m not a goin’ t’night, 
Rachael ; nor yet t’ morrow. Tan’t easy 
overmuch, t’ know wheer t’ turn, but a good 
heart will coom to me.” 

Herein, too, the sense of even thinking un- 
selfishly aided him. Before he had so much 
as closed Mr. Bounderby’s door, lie had re- 
flected that at least his being obliged to go 
away was good for her, as it would save 
her from the chance of being brought 
into question for not withdrawing from him. 
Though it would cost him a hard pang to 
leave her, and though he could think of.no 
similiar place in which his condemnation 
would not pursue him, perhaps it was almost 
a relief to be forced away from the endu- 
rance of the last four days, even to unknown 
difficulties and distresses. 

So he said, with truth, “I’m more leetsome 
Rachael, under ’t than I couldn ha believed.” 
It was not her part to make his burden 
heavier. She answered with her comforting 
smile, and the three walked on together. 

Age, especially when it strives to be self- 
reliant and cheerful, finds much consideration 
among the poor. The old woman was so 
decent and contented, and made so light of 
her infirmities, though they had increased 
upon her since her former interview with 
Stephen, that they both took an interest in 
her. She was too sprightly to allow of their 
walking at a slow pace on her account, but she 
was very grateful to be talked to, and very 
willing to talk to any extent ; so, when they 
came to their part of the town, she was 
more brisk and vivacious than ever. 

“ Coom to my poor place, missus,” said 
Stephen, “ and tak a coop o’ tea. Rachael 
will coom then, and arterwards I’ll see thee 
safe t’ thy Travellers’ lodgin. ’T may be long, 
Rachael, ere ever I ha th’ chance o’ thy coom- 
pany agen.” 

They complied, and the three went on to 
the house where he lodged. When they 
turned into the narrow street, Stephen glanced 
at his window with a dread that always 
haunted his desolate home ; but it was open, 
as he had left it, and no one was there. The 
evil spirit of his life had flitted away again, 
months ago, and he had heard no more of her 
since. The only evidences of her last return 
now, were the scantier moveables in his room, 
and the grayer hair upon his head. 

He lighted a candle, set out his little tea- 
board, got hot water from below, and brought 
in small portions of tea and sugar, a loaf, and 
some butter, from the nearest shop. The bread 
was new and crusty, the butter fresh, and 
the sugar lump, of course — in fulfilment of 
the standard testimony of the Coketown 
magnates, that these people lived like princes, 
sir. Rachael made the tea (so large a party 
necessitated the borrowing of a cup), and 
the visitor enjoyed it mightily. It was the 
first glimpse of sociality the host had had 
for many days. He too, with the world a 
wide heath before him, enjoyed the meal— 


HARD TIMES. 


57 


again in corroboration of the magnates, as 
exemplifying the utter want of calculation on 
the part of these people, sir. 

“ I ha never thowt yet, missus,” said 
Stephen, “ o’ askin thy name.” 

The old lady announced herself as “ Mrs. 
Pegler.” 

“A widder, I think?” said Stephen. 

“ Oh, many long years !” Mrs. Pegler’s 
husband (one of the best on record) was 
already dead, by Mrs. Pegler’s calculation, 
when Stephen was born. 

“ ’Twere a bad job too, to lose so good a 
one,” said Stephen. “ Onny children ?” 

Mrs. Pegler’s cup, rattling against her 
saucer as she held it, denoted some nervous- 
ness on her part. “ No,” she said. “ Not now, 
not now.” 

“ Dead, Stephen,” Rachael softly hinted. 

“ I’m sooray I ha spok’n on’t,” said 
Stephen. “ I ought t’ ha hadn in my mind 
as I might touch a sore place. I — I blame 
myseln.” 

While he excused himself, the old lady’s 
cup rattled more and more. “ I had a son,” 
she said, curiously distressed, and not by any 
of the usual appearances of sorrow ; “ and he 
did well, wonderfully well. But he is not to 

be spoken of if you please. He is ” 

Putting down her cup, she moved her hands 
as if she would have added, by her action, 
“dead!” Then, she said, aloud, “ I have lost 
him.” 

Stephen had not yet got the better of his 
having given the old lady pain, when his 
landlady came stumbling up the narrow 
stairs, and calling him to the door, whis- 
pered in his ear. Mrs. Pegler was by 
no means deaf, for she caught a word as it 
was uttered. 

“ Bounderby l” she cried, in a suppressed 
voice, starting up from the table. “Oh hide 
me! Don’t let me be seen for the world. 
Don’t let him come up till I have got away. 
Pray, pray!” She trembled, and was exces- 
sively agitated 5 getting behind Rachel, 
when Rachael tried to reassure her ; and not 
seeming to know what she was about. 

“But hearken, missus, hearken 5” said 
Stephen, astonished, “ ’Tisn’t Mr. Bounderby ; 
’tis his wife. Yor not fearfo’ o’ her. Yo was 
hey-go-mad about her, but an hour sin.” 

“But are you sure it’s the lady and not 
the gentleman ?” she asked, still trembling. 

“Certain sure !” 

“Well then, pray don’t speak to me, nor 
yet take any notice of me,” said the old 
woman. “ Let me be quite to myself in this 
corner.” 

Stephen nodded 5 looking to Rachael for an 
explanation, which she was quite unable, to 
give him 5 took the candle, went down, stairs, 
and in a few moments returned, lighting 
Louisa into the room. She was followed by 
the whelp. 

Rachael had risen, and stood apart with 
her shawl and bonnet in her hand, when 


Stephen, himself profoundly astonished by 
this visit, put the candle on the table. Then 
he too stood, with his doubled hand upon 
the table near it, waiting to be addressed. 

For the first time in her life, Louisa had 
come into one of the dwellings of the Coke- 
town Hands ; for the first time in her life, 
she was face to face with anything 
like individuality in connexion with them. 
She knew of their existence by hundreds 
and by thousands. She knew what results 
in work a given number of them would pro- 
duce, in a given space of time. She knew them 
in crowds passing to and from their nests, 
like ants or beetles. But she knew from her 
reading infinitely more of the ways of toiling 
insects, than of these toiling men and women. 

Something to be worked so much and paid 
so much, and there ended ; something to be 
infallibly settled by laws of supply and de- 
mand ; something that blundered against 
those laws, and floundered into difficulty 5 
something that was a little pinched when 
wheat was dear, and over-ate itself when 
wheat was cheap ; something that increased 
at such a rate of percentage, yielded such 
another percentage of crime, and such 
another percentage of pauperism ; something 
wholesale, of which vast fortunes were made ; 
something that occasionally rose like a sea, and 
did some harm and waste (chiefly to itself); 
and fell again ; this she knew the Coketown 
Hands to be. But, she had scarcely thought 
more of separating them into units, than of 
separating the sea itself into its component 
drops. 

She stood for some moments looking round 
the room. From the few chairs, the few 
books, the common prints, and the bed, she 
glanced at the two women, and to Stephen. 

“I have come to speak to you, in conse- 
quence of what passed just now. I should 
like to be serviceable to you, if you will let me. 
Is this your wife ?” 

Rachael raised her eyes, and then sufficiently 
answered no, and dropped again. 

“I remember,” said Louisa, reddening at 
her mistake ; “ I recollect, now, to have heard 
your domestic misfortunes spoken of, though 
I was not attending to the particulars at the 
time. It was not my meaning to ask a ques- 
tion that would give pain to any one here. If 
I should ask any other question that may 
happen to have that result, give me credit, if 
you please, for being in ignorance how to 
speak to you as I ought.” 

As Stephen had but a little while ago in- 
stinctively addressed himself to her, so she 
now instinctively addressed herself to Rachel. 
Her manner was short and abrupt, yet falter- 
ing and timid. 

“ He has told you what has passed between 
himself and my husband ? You would be 
his first resource, I think.” 

“ I have heard the end of it, young lady,” 
said Rachel. 

“ Did I understand, that, being rejected by 


58 


HARD TIMES. 


one employer, he would probably be rejected ^ 
by all ? I thought he said as much ?” 

“ The chances are very small, young lady — 
next to nothing — for a man who gets a bad 
name among them.” 

“ What shall 1 uuderstand that you mean 
by a bad name ?” 

“ The name of being troublesome.” 

“ Then, by the prejudices of his own class, 
and by the prejudices of the other, he is sacri- 
ficed alike ? Are the two so deeply sepa- 
rated in this town, that there is no place 
whatever, for an honest workman between 
them V ’ 

Rachel shook her head in silence. 

“ He fell into suspicion,” said Louisa,” with 
his fellow-weavers, because he had made a 
promise not to be one of them. I think it 
must have been to you that he made that 
promise. Might I ask you why he made 
it ?” 

Rachel burst into tears. “ I didn’t seek it 
of him, poor lad. I prayed him to avoid 
trouble for his own good, little thinking he’d 
come to it through me. But I know he’d 
die a hundred deaths, ere ever he’d break his 
word. I know that of him well.” 

Stephen had remained quietly attentive, in 
his usual thoughtful attitude, with his hand 
at his chin. He now spoke ki a voice rather 
less steady than usual. 

“ No one, excepting myseln, can ever know 
what honor, an what love, an respect, I bear 
to Rachael, or wi’ what cause. When I 
passed that promess. I towd her true, she 
were th’ Angel o’ my life. ’Twere a solemn 
promess. ’Tis gone fro me, fur ever.” 

Louisa turned her head to him, and bent it 
with a deference that was new in her. She 
looked from him to Rachael, and her features 
softened. “ What will you do ?” she aslsfed 
him. And her voice had softened too. 

“ Wheel maam,” said Stephen, making the 
best of it, with a smile ; “ when I ha finished 
off, I mun quit this part, an try another. 
Fortnet or misfornet, a man can but try ; 
there’s nowt to be done wi’ out tryin’ — cept 
laying doon an dying.” 

“How will you travel?” 

“ Afoot, my kind ledy, afoot.” 

Louisa colored, and a purse appeared in 
her hand. The rustling of a bank-note was 
audible, as she unfolded one and laid it on the 
table. 

“ Rachael, will you tell him — for you know 
how, without offence — that this is freely his, 
to help him on his way? Will you entreat 
him to take it?” 

“ I canna’ do that, young lady,” she 
answered, turning her head aside ; “ Bless 
you for thinking o’ the poor lad wi’ such 
tenderness. But ’tis for him to known his 
heart, and what is right according to it.” 

Louisa looked, in part incredulous, in part 
frightened, in part overcome with quick 
sympathy, when this man of so much self- 
command who had been so plain and steady 


I through the late interview, lost his com- 
posure in a moment, and now stood with his 
hand before his face. She stretched out 
hers, as if she would have touched him ; 
then checked herself, and remained still 

“Not e’en Rachael,” said Stephen, when 
he stood again with his face uncovered, 
“could mak sitch a kind offerin, by onny 
words, kinder. T’ show that I’m not a 
man wi’out reason and gratitude, I’ll tak 
two pound. I’ll borrow’! for t’ pay’t back. 
’Twill be the sweetest work as ever I ha 
done, that puts it in my power t’ acknow- 
ledge once more my lastin thankfulness for 
this present action.” 

She was fain to take up the note again, 
and to substitute the much smaller sum 
be had named. He was neither courtly, 
nor handsome, nor picturesque, in any 
respect ; and yet his manner of accepting 
it, and of expressing his thanks without 
more words, had a grace in it that Lord 
Chesterfield could not have taught his son 
in a century. 

Tom had sat upon the bed, swinging one 
leg and sucking his w’alking-stick with suf- 
ficient unconcern, until the visit had attained 
this stage. Seeing his sister ready to depart 
he got up, rather hurriedly, and put in a word. 

“ Just wait a moment, Loo ! Before we 
go, I should like to speak to him a moment. 
Something comes into my head. If you’ll 
step out on the stairs, Blackpool, I’ll mention 
it. Never mind a light man?” Tom was 
remarkably impatient of his moving towards 
the cupboard, to get one. “ It don’t want a 
light.” 

Stephen followed him out, and Tom closed 
the room door, and held the lock in his 
hand. 

“ I say !” he whispered. “ I think I can do 
you a good turn. Don’t ask me what it is, 
because it may not come to anything. But 
there’s no harm in my trying.” 

His breath fell like a flame of fire on 
Stephen’s ear ; it was so hot. 

“ That was our light porter at the Bank,” 
said Tom, “ who brought you the message to- 
night. I call him our light porter, because 
I belong to the Bank too.” 

Stephen thought “ What a hurry he is in !” 
He spoke so confusedly. 

“Well!” said Tom. “Now look here! 
When are you off?” 

“ T’day’s Monday,” replied Stephen, con- 
sidering. “Why, sir, Friday or Saturday, 
nigh ’bout.” 

“Friday or Saturday,” said Tom. “Now, 
look here ! — I am not sure that I can do 
you the good turn I want to do you — that’s 
my sister, you know, in your room — but I 
may be able to, and if I should not be 
able to, there’s no harm done. So I tell 
you w ? hat. You’ll know our light porter 
again ?” 

“ Yes sure,” said Stephen. 

“Very well,” returned Tom. “When 


* 


HARD TIMES. 


59 


you leave work of a night, between this 
and your going away, just hang about the 
Bank an hour or so, will you ? Don't take 
on, as if you meant anything, if he should 
see you hanging about there ; because I 
shan't put him up to speak to you, unless 
I tind I can do you the service I want to 
do you. In that case he’ll have a note or 
a message for you, but not else. Now look 
here ! You are sure you understand.” 

He had wormed a finger, in the dark- 
ness, through a button-hole of Stephen’s 
coat, and was screwing that corner of the 
garment tight up, round and round, in 
an extraordinary manner. 

“ I understan. sir,” said Stephen. 

“ Now look here !” repeated Tom. “ Be 
sure you don’t make any mistake then, and 
don't forget. I shall tell my sister as we 
go home, what I have in view, and she’ll 
approve, I know. Now look here! You’re 
all right, are you? You understand all 
about it ? Very well then. Come along. Loo!” 

He pushed the door open as he called 
to her, but did not return into the room, 
or wait to be lighted down the narrow stairs. 
He was at the bottom when she began to 
descend, and was in the street before she 
could take his arm. 

Mrs. Pegler remained in her corner until 
the brother and sister were gone, and until 
Stephen came back with the candle in his 
hand. She was in a state of inexpressible 
admiration of Mrs. Bounderby, and, like an 
unaccountable old woman, wept, “because 
she was such a pretty dear.” Yet Mrs. 
Pegler was so flurried lest the object of 
her admiration should return by any chance, 
or anybody else should come, that her 
cheerfulness was ended for that night. It 
was late too, to people who rose early and 
worked hard ; therefore the party broke 
up ; and Stephen and Rachael escorted their 
mysterious acquaintance to the door of the 
Travellers’ Colfee House, where they parted 
from her. 

They walked back together to the corner 
of the street where Rachael lived, and as 
they drew nearer and nearer to it, silence 
crept upon them. When they came to the 
dark corner where their unfrequent meetings 
always ended, they stopped, still silent, as if 
both were afraid to speak. 

“ I shall strive t’ see thee agen, Rachael, 
afore I go, but if not — — ” 

“ Thou wilt not, Stephen, I know. ’Tis 
better that we make up our minds to be 
open wi 1 one another.” 

“ Thou’rt awlus right. ’Tis bolder and 
better. I ha been thinkin then. Rachael, 
that as ’tis but a day or two that remains, 
’twere better for thee, my dear, not t’ be 
seen wi’ me. ’T might bring thee into 
trouble fur no good.” 

“ ’Tis not for that, Stephen, that I mind. 
But thou know’st our old agreement. ’Tis 
for that.” 


“ Well, well,” said he. “ ’Tis better, onny- 
ways.” 

“ Thou ’It write to me, and tell me all that 
happens, Stephen ? ” 

“ Yes. What can I say now, but Heaven 
be wi’ thee, Heaven bless thee, Heaven 
thank thee and reward thee ! ” 

“ May it bless thee, Stephen, too, in all 
thy wanderings, and send thee peace and 
rest at last ! ” 

“I towd thee, my dear,” said Stephen 
Blackpool — “ that night — that I would nevei 
see or think o’ onnything that angered me, 
but thou, so much better than me, shouldst 
be beside it. Thou’rt beside it now. Thou 
mak’st me see it wi’ a better eye. Bless 
thee. Good night. Good bye ! ” 

It was but a hurried parting in the com- 
mon street, yet it was a sacred remem- 
brance to these two common people. Utili- 
tarian economists, skeletons of schoolmasters, 
Commissioners of Fact, genteel and used up 
infidels, gabblers of many little dog’s-eared 
creeds, the poor you will have always with 
you. Cultivate in them, while there is yet time, 
the utmost graces of the fancies and affec- 
tions, to adorn their lives so much in need 
of ornament ; or, in the moment of your 
triumph, when romance is utterly driven 
out of their souls, and they and a bare exist- 
ence stand face to face, Reality will take a 
wolfish turn, and make an end of you ! 

Stephen worked the next day, and the 
next, uncheered by a word from any one, 
and shunned in all his comings and goings as 
before. At the end of the second day he 
saw land ; at the end of the third, his loom 
stood empty. 

He had overstayed his hour in the street 
outside the Bank, on each of the two first 
evenings ; and nothing had happened there, 
good or bad. That he might not be remiss 
in his part of the engagement, he resolved to 
wait full two hours, on this third and last 
night. 

There was the lady who had once kept 
Mr. Bounderby’s house, sitting at the first 
floor window as he had seen her before ; and 
there was the light porter, sometimes talking 
with her there, and sometimes looking over 
the blind below which had Bank upon it, and 
sometimes coming to the door and standing on 
the steps for a breath of air. When he first 
came out, Stephen thought he might be look- 
ing for him, and passed near ; but the light 
porter only cast his winking eyes upon him 
slightly, and said nothing. 

Two hours were a long stretch of lounging 
about, after a long day’s labor. Stephen sat 
upon the step of a door, leaned against a wall 
under an archway, strolled up and down, lis- 
tened for the church clock, stopped and 
watched children playing in the street. Some 
purpose or other is so natural to every one, 
that a mere loiterer always looks and feels 
remarkable. When the first hour was out, 
Stephen even' began to have an uncomfort- 


60 


HARD TIMES. 


able sensation upon him of being for the 
time a disreputable character. 

Then came the lamplighter, and two length- 
ening lines of light all down the long perspec- 
tive of the street, until they were blended 
and lost in the distance. Mrs. Sparsit closed 
the first floor window, drew down the blind, 
and went up stairs. Presently, a light went 
up stairs after her, passing first the fanlight 
of the door, and afterwards the two staircase 
windows, on its way up. By and by, one 
corner of the second floor blind was dis- 
turbed, as if Mrs. Sparsit’s eye were 
there ; also the other corner, as if the 
light porter’s eye were on that side. Still, 
no communication was made to Stephen. 
Much relieved when the two hours were 
at last accomplished, he went away at a quick 
pace, as a recompense for so much loitering. 

He had only to take leave of his landlady, 
and lie down on his temporary bed upon the 
floor ; for his bundle was made up for to-mor- 
row, and all was arranged for his departure. 
He meant to be clear of the town very early : 
before the Hands were in the streets. 

It was barely daybreak, when with a part- 
ing look round his room, mournfully wonder- 
ing whether he should ever see it again, he 
went out. The town was as entirely deserted 
as if the inhabitants had abandoned it, rather 
than hold' communication with him. Every- 
thing looked wan at that hour. Even the 
coming sun made but a pale waste in the 
sky, like a sad sea. 

By the place where Rachael lived, though 
it was not in his way; by the red brick 
streets; by the great silent factories, not 
trembling yet ; by the railway, Where the 
danger-lights were waning in the strength- 
ening day ; by the railway’s crazy neigh- 
bourhood, half pulled down and half 
built up ; by scattered red brick villas, where 
the besmoked evergreens were sprinkled with 
a dirty powder, like untidy snuff-takers ; 
by coal dust paths and many varieties of 
ugliness ; Stephen got to the top of the hill, 
and looked back. 

Day was shining radiantly upon the town 
then, and the bells were going for the morn- 
ing work. Domestic fires were not yet 
lighted, and the high chimnies had the sky 
to themselves. Puffing out their poisonous 
volumes, they would not be long in hiding it ; 
but, for half an hour, some of the many win- 
dows were golden, which showed the Coke- 
town people a sun eternally in eclipse, through 
a medium of smoked glass. 

So strange to turn from the chimnies to 
the birds. So strange to have the road-dust on 
his feet instead of the coal-grit. So strange to 
have lived to his time of life, and yet to be 
beginning like a boy this summer morning ! 
With these musings in his mind, and his 
bundle under his arm, Stephen took his atten- 
tive face along the high road. And the trees 
arched over him, whispering that he left a 
true and loving heart behind. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

Mr. James Harthouse, “ going in ” for his 
adopted party, soon began to score. With 
the aid of a little more coaching for the 
political sages, a little more genteel listless- 
ness for general society, and a tolerable 
management of the assumed honesty in dis- 
honesty, most effective and most patronised 
of the polite deadly sins, he speedily came 
to be considered of promise as a rising public 
man. The not being troubled with any 
earnestness was a grand point in his favour, 
enabling him to take to the hard Fact fellows 
with as good a grace as if he had been one of 
the tribe, and to throw all other tribes over- 
board, as conscious imposters. 

“ Whom none of us believe, my dear Mrs. 
Bounderby ; and who don’t believe them- 
selves. The only difference between myself, 
for example, and any professor of virtue or 
benevolence, or philanthropy — never mind 
the name — is, that I know it is all meaning- 
less, and say so ; while he knows it equally 
and will never say so.” 

Why should she be shocked or warned by 
this reiteration? It was not so unlike her 
father’s principles, and her early training, 
that it need startle her. "Where was the 
great difierence between the two schools, 
when each chained her down to material 
realities, and inspired her with no faith in 
anything else. What was there in her soul 
for James Harthouse to destroy, which 
Thomas Gradgrind had nurtured there in its 
state of innocence ? 

It was even the worse for h.er at this pass, 
that in her mind — implanted there before her 
eminently practical father began to form it — 
a struggling disposition to believe in a wider 
and nobler humanity than she had ever heard 
of, constantly strove with doubts and resent- 
ments. With doubts, because the aspiration 
had been so laid waste in her youth. With 
resentments, because of the wrong that had 
been done her, if it were indeed a whisper of 
the truth. Upon a nature long accustomed 
to self-suppression, thus torn and divided, the 
new philosophy came as a relief and a justifi- 
cation. Everything being hollow, and of 
little worth, she had missed nothing and 
sacrificed nothing. What did it matter, she 
had said to her father, when he proposed her 
husband. What did K it matter, she said now. 
With a scornful self-reliance, she asked her- 
self. What did anything matter — and 
went on. 

Towards what ? Step by step onward and 
downward, towards some end, yet so gradu- 
ally that she believed herself to remain 
motionless. As to Mr. Harthouse, whether 
he succeeded, he neither considered nor cared. 
He had no particular design or plan before 
him ; no energetic wickedness ruffled his 
lassitude. He was as much amused and 
interested at present as it became so fine a 
gentleman to be ; perhaps even more than it 


HARD TIMES. 


Cl 


would have been consistent with his reputa- 
tion to confess. Soon after his arrival he 
wrote to his brother, the honorable and 
jocular member, that the Bounderbys were 
“ great fun,” and further, that the female 
Bounderby, instead of being the Gorgon he 
had expected, was young and remarkably 
pretty. After that, he wrote no more about 
them, and devoted his leisure chiefly to their 
house. He was very often in their house in 
his Sittings and visitings about the Coketown 
district, and was much encouraged by Mr. 
Bounderby. It was quite in Mr. Bounderby’s 
gusty way to roar to all his world that he 
didn’t care about your highly connected people, 
but that if his wife, Tom Gradgrind’s daughter, 
did, she was welcome to their company. 

Mr. James Harthouse began to think it 
would be a new sensation, if the face which 
changed so beautifully for the whelp, would 
change for him. 

He was quick enough to observe ; he had 
a good memory, and did not forget a word of 
the brother’s revelations. He interwove them 
with everything he saw of the sister, and he 
began to understand her. To be sure, the 
better and profounder part of her character 
was not within his scope of perception 5 for in 
natures, as in seas, depth answers unto depth ; 
but he soon began to read the rest with a 
student’s eye. 

Mr. Bounderby had taken possession of a 
house and grounds, about fifteen miles from 
the town, and accessible within a mile or two, 
by a railway striding on many arches, 
over a wild country, undermined by deserted 
coalpits, and spotted at night by fires and 
black shapes of engines. This country, gra- 
dually softening towards the neighbourhood 
of Mr. Bounderby’s retreat, there mellowed 
down into a rustic landscape, golden with 
heath and snowy with hawthorn in the spring 
of the year, and tremulous with leaves and 
their shadows all the summer time. The 
banker had foreclosed a mortgage on the 
property effected by one of the Coketown 
magnates who, in his determination to make 
a shorter cut than usual to an enormous 
fortune, overspeculated himself by about two 
hundred thousand pounds. These accidents 
did sometimes happen in the best-regulated 
families of Coketown, though the bankrupts 
had no connexion whatever with the impro- 
vident classes. 

It afforded Mr. Bounderby supreme satis- 
faction to instal himself in this snug little 
estate, and with demonstrative humility to 
grow cabbages in the flower-garden. Simi- 
larly he lived in a kind of barrack fashion 
among the elegant furniture, and bullied the 
very pictures with his origin. “Why, sir,” 
he would say to a visitor, “I am told that 
Nickits,” the late owner, “gave seven hundred 
pound for that Sea-beach. Now, to be plain 
with you, if I ever, in the whole course of my 
life, take seven looks at it, at a hundred 
pound a look, it will be as much as I shall 


do. No, by George ! I don’t forget that I 
am Josiah Bounderby, of Coketown. For 
years upon years, the only pictures in my 
possession, or that I could have got into my 
possession by any means, unless I stole ’em, 
were the engravings of a man shaving himself 
in a boot, on the blacking bottles that I was 
overjoyed to use in cleaning your boots, and 
that I sold when they were empty for a farthing 
a-piece, and glad to get it !” 

Then he would address Mr. Harthouse in 
the same style. 

“Harthouse, you have got a couple of 
horses down here. Bring half a dozen more 
if you like, and we’ll find room for ’em. 
There ’s stabling in this place for a dozen 
horses ; and unless Nickits is belied, he kept 
the full number. A round dozen of ’em, sir. 
When that man was a boy, he went to West- 
minster School. Went to YVestminster School 
as a King’s Scholar, when I was principally 
living on garbage, and sleeping in market 
baskets. Why, if I wanted to keep a dozen 
horses — which I don’t, for one’s enough for 
me — I couldn’t bear to see ’em in their stalls 
here, and think what my own lodging used to 
be. I couldn’t look at ’em, sir, and not order 
’em out. Yet so things come round. You see 
this place, you know what sort of a place it 
is ; you are well aware that there’s not a 
completer place of its size in this kingdom or 
elsewhere — I don’t care where — and here, 
got into the middle of, like a maggot into a 
nut, is Josiah Bounderby. While Nickits (as 
a man came into my office, and told me 
yesterday), Nickits, who used to act in Latin, 
in the Westminster School plays, with the 
chief-justices and nobility of this country ap- 
plauding him till they were black in the face, 
is drivelling at this minute — drivelling ! — in a 
fifth floor, up a narrow dark back street in 
Antwerp.” 

It was among the leafy shadows of this 
retirement in the long sultry summer days, 
that Mr. Harthouse began to prove the face 
which had set him wondering when he first 
saw it, and to try if it would change for him. 

“Mrs. Bounderby. I esteem it a most 
fortunate accident that I find you alone here. 

I have for some time had a particular wish to 
speak to you.” 

It was not by any wonderful accident that 
he found her, the time of day being that at 
which she was always alone, and the place 
being her favourite resort. It was an opening 
in a dark wood, where some felled trees lay, 
and where she would sit watching the fallen 
leaves of last year, as she had watched the 
falling ashes at home. 

He sat down beside her, with a glance at 
her face. 

“ Your brother. My young friend Tom — ” 

Her color brightened, and she turned to 
him with a look of interest. “ I never in my 
life,” he thought, “ saw anything so remark- 
able and so captivating as the lighting of 
those features 1” His face betrayed his 


62 


HARD TIMES. 


thoughts — perhaps without betraying him, for 
it might have been according to its instruc- 
tions so to do. 

“ Pardon me. The expression of your 
sisterly interest is so beautiful — Tom should 
be so proud of it. I know this is inexcusable, 
but I am so compelled to admire.” 

“Being so impulsive,” she said composedly. 

“Mrs. Bounderby, no; you know I make 
no pretence with you. You know I am a 
sordid piece of human nature, ready to sell 
myself at any time for any reasonable sum, 
and altogether incapable of any Arcadian 
proceeding whatever.” 

“ I am waiting,” she returned, “ for your 
further reference to my brother.” 

“ You are rigid with me, and I deserve it. 
I am as worthless a dog as you will find, 
except that I am not false — not false. But 
you surprised and started me from my subject, 
which was your brother. I have an interest 
in him.” 

“ Have you an interest in anything, Mr. 
Harthouse ?” she asked, half incredulously 
and half gratefully. 

“ If you had asked me when I first came 
here I should have said no. I must say now — 
even at the hazard of appearing to make a 
pretence, and of justly awakening your in- 
credulity — yes.” 

She made a slight movement, as if she were 
trying to speak, but could not find voice ; at 
length she said, “ Mr. Harthouse, I will give 
you credit for being interested in my bro- 
ther.” 

“ Thank you. I claim to deserve it. You 
know how little I do claim, but I will go that 
length. You have done so much for him, you 
are so fond of him, your whole life, Mrs. 
Bounderby, expresses such charming self- 
forgetfulness on his account — pardon me 
again — I am running wide of the subject. I 
am interested in him for his own sake.” 

She had made the slightest action possible, 
as if she would have risen in a hurry and gone 
away. He had turned the course of what he 
said at that instant, and she remained. 

“ Mrs. Bounderby,” he resumed, in a lighter 
manner, and yet with a show of effort in 
assuming it, which was even more expressive 
than the manner he dismissed ; “ it is no irre- 
vocable offence in a young fellow of your 
brother’s years, — he is heedless, inconsiderate, 
and expensive — a little dissipated, in good 
people’s phrase. Is he ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Allow me to be frank. Do you think he 
games at all ?” 

“ I think he bets.” Mr. Harthouse wait- 
ing, as if that were not her whole answer, 
she added, “ I know he does.” 

“ Of course he loses?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Everybody loses. May I hint at the pro- 
bability of your sometimes supplying him 
with money for these purposes.” 

She sat, looking down ; but, at this ques- 


tion, raised her eyes searchingly and a little 
resentfully. 

“ Acquit me of impertinent curiosity, my 
dear Mrs. Bounderby. I think Tom may 
be gradually falling into trouble, and I wish 
to stretch out a helping hand to him in my 
wicked experience. — Shall I say again,, for his 
sake ? Is that necessary ?” 

She seemed to try to answer, but nothing 
came of it. 

“ Candidly to confess everything that has 
occurred to me,” said James Harthouse, again 
glidingSvitli the same appearance of effort 
into his more airy manner. “ I will confide 
to you my doubt whether he has had many 
advantages. Whether — forgive my bluntness 
— whether any great amount of confidence is 
likely to have been established between him- 
self and his most worthy father.” 

“ I do not,” said Louisa, flushing with her 
own great resemblance in that wise, “ think it 
likely.” 

“ Or, between himself, and — I may trust to 
your perfect understanding of my meaning I 
am sure — and his highly esteemed brother-in- 
law.” 

She flushed deeper and deeper, and was 
burning red when she replied in a fainter 
voice, “ I do not think that likely, either.” 

“ Mrs. Bounderby,” said Harthouse, after 
a short silence, “ may there be a better con- 
fidence between yourself and me ? Tom lias 
borrowed a considerable sum of you ?” 

“ You will understand, Mr. Harthouse,” 
she returned after some indecision : she had 
been more or less uncertain, and trembled 
throughout the conversation, and yet had in 
the main preserved her self-contained man- 
ner ; “ you will understand that if I tell you 
what you press to know, it is not by way of 
complaint or regret. I would never complain 
of anything, and this thing I do not in the 
least regret.” 

“ So spirited, too !” thought James Hart- 
house. 

“When I married I found that my brother 
was even at that time heavily in debt. 
Heavily for him, I mean. Heavily enough 
to oblige me to sell some trinkets. They 
were no sacrifice. I did so very willingly. I 
attached no value to them. They were quite 
worthless to me.” 

Either she saw in his face that he knew, or 
she only feared in her conscience that he knew 
that she spoke of some of her husband’s gifts. 
She stopped, and reddened again. If he had 
not known it before, he would have known it 
then, though he had been a much duller man 
than he was. 

“ Since then, I have given my brother, at 
various times, what money I could spare ; in 
short, what money I have had. Confiding in 
you at all, on the faith of the interest you 
profess for him, I ought not to do so by 
halves. Since you have been in the habit of 
visiting here, he has wanted in one sum as 
much as a hundred pounds. I have not beeD 


HARD TIMES. 


63, 


able to give it to him. I have sometimes been 
uneasy for the consequences of his being so 
involved, but I have kept these secrets until 
now, when I trust them to your honor. I 
have held no confidence with any one, because 
— you anticipated my reason just now.” She 
abruptly broke off. 

lie was a ready man, and he saw, and 
seized, an opportunity here of presenting her 
own image to her, slightly disguised as her 
brother. 

“ Mrs. Bounderby, though a graceless person, 
of tbe world worldly, I feel the utmost 
interest, I assure you, in what you tell me. I 
cannot possibly be hard upon your brother. I 
understand and share the wise consideration 
with which you regard his errors. With, all 
possible respect both for Mr. Gradgrind and 
for Mr. Bounderby, I think I perceive that 
he has not been very fortunate in his training. 
Placed at a disadvantage towards the society 
in which he has his part to play, he rushes 
into these extremes for himself, from opposite 
extremes that have long been forced — with the 
very best intentions we have no doubt — upon 
him. Mr. Bounderby’s fine bluff English 
independence, though a most charming 
characteristic, does not — as we have agreed — 
invite confidence.” He was very slow and 
distinct in what followed. “If I might 
venture to remark that it is the least in the 
world deficient in that delicacy to which a 
youth mistaken, a character misconceived, 
and abilities misdirected, would turn for 
relief and guidance, I should express what 
it presents to my own view.” 

As he sat looking straight before her, across 
the changing lights upon the grass into the 
darkness of the wood beyond, he saw in her 
face her application of his words. 

“ All allowance,” he continued, “ must be 
made. I have one great fault to find with 
Tom, however, which I cannot forgive, and 
for which I take him heavily to account.” 

Louisa turned her eyes to his face, and 
asked him what fault was that ? 

“ Perhaps,” he returned, “ I have said 
enough. Perhaps it would have been better, 
on the whole, if no allusion to it had escaped 
me.” 

“ You alarm me, Mr. Harthouse. Pray let 
me know it.” 

“ To relieve you from needless apprehen- 
sion — and as this confidence regarding your 
brother, which I prize I am sure above all 
possible things, has been established between 
us— I obey. I cannot forgive him for not being 
more sensible, in every word, look, and act of 
his life, of the affection of his best friend ; of 
the devotion of his best friend ; of her unself- 
ishness ; of her sacrifice. The return he 
makes her, within my observation, is a very 
poor one. What she has done for him demands 
his constant respect and gratitude, not his ill- 
humour and caprice. Careless fellow as I am, 

I am not so indifferent, Mrs. Bounderby, as , 


to be regardless of this vice in your brother, 
or inclined to consider it a venial offence.” 

The wood floated before her, for her eyes 
were suffused with tears. They rose from a 
deep well long concealed, and her heart was 
filled with acute pain that found no relief in 
them. Yet she restrained her tears from 
falling. 

“ In a word it is to correct your brother in 
this, Mrs. Bounderby, that I most aspire, by 
better knowledge of his circumstances, and 

my direction and advice in extricating him 

rather valuable I hope as coming from a 
scapegrace on a much larger scale — will give 
me some influence over him, and all I gain I 
shall certainly use towards this end. I have 
said enough, and more than enough. I seem 
to be protesting that I am a sort of good 
fellow when, upon my honor, I have not the 
least intention to make any protestation to 
that effect, and openly announce that I am 
nothing of the sort. Yonder among the trees,” 
he added, having lifted up his eyes and looked 
about ; for he had watched her closely until 
now. “ ’Tis your brother himself; no doubt, 
just come down. As he seems to be loitering 
in this direction, it may be as well, perhaps, 
to walk towards him, and throw ourselves in 
his way. He has been very silent and doleful 
of late. Perhaps, his brotherly conscience is 
touched — if there are such things as con- 
sciences. Though, upon my honor, I hear of 
them much too often to believe in them, know- 
ing the world.” 

lie assisted her to rise, and she took his 
arm, and they advanced to meet the whelp. 
He was idly beating the branches as he 
lounged along : or he stopped viciously to rip 
the moss from the trees with his stick. He 
was startled when they came upon him while 
he was engaged in this latter pastime, and his 
color changed. 

“ Halloa 1” he stammered, “ I didn’t know 
you were here.” 

“ Whose name, Tom,” said Mr. Harthouse, 
putting his hand upon his shoulder, as they 
all three walked towards the house together, 
“have you been carving on the trees?” 

“ Whose name ?” returned Tom. “ Oh ! you 
mean what girl’s name ?” 

“ You have a suspicious appearance of in- 
scribing some fair creature’s on the bark, 
Tom.” 

“ Not much of that, Mr. Harthouse, unless 
some fair creature with a slashing fortune at 
her own disposal would take a fancy to me. 
Or she might be as ugly as she was rich, with- 
out any fear of losing me. I’d carve her name 
as often as she liked.” 

“ I’m afraid you are mercenary, Tom.” 

“ Mercenary,” repeated Tom. “ Who is not 
mercenary ? Ask my sister.” 

“ Have you so proved it to be a failing of 
mine, Tom ?” said Louisa, showing no other 
sense of his discontent and ill-nature. 

“ You know whether the cap fits you, Loo,” 


G4 


HARD TIMES. 


returned her brother sulkily. “ If it does, you 
can wear it if you like.” 

“ Tom is misanthropical to day, as all bored 
people are, now, and then,” said Mr. Hart- 
house. “ Don’t believe him, Mrs. Bounderby. 
He knows much better. I shall disclose some 
of his opinions of you privately expressed 
to me, this deponent, unless he relents a 
little.” 

“ At all events, Mr. Harthouse,” said Tom, 
softening in his admiration of his patron, but 
shaking his head sullenly too, “ you can’t tell 
her that I ever praised her for being merce- 
nary. I may have praised her for being the 
contrary, and I should do it again if I had as 
good reason. However, never mind this now ; 
it’s not very interesting to you, and I am sick 
of it.” 

They walked on to the house, where Louisa 
quitted her visitor’s arm and went in. He 
stood looking after her as she ascended the 
steps and passed into the shadow of the door, 
then put his hand upon her brother’s shoulder 
again, and invited him with a confidential nod 
to walk in the garden. 

“Torn, my fine fellow, I want to have a 
word with you.” They had stopped among a 
disorder of roses — it was part of Mr. Boun- 
derby’s humility to keep Nickits’s roses on a 
reduced scale — and Tom sat down on a 
terrace-parapet, plucking buds and picking 
them to pieces, while his powerful Familiar 
stood over him, with a foot upon the parapet 
and his figure easily resting on the arm sup- 
ported by that knee. They were just visible 
from her window. Perhaps she saw them. 

“ Tom, what’s the matter?” 

“ Oh ! Mr. Harthouse,” said Tom, with a 
groan, “ I am hard up and bothered out of 
my life.” 

“ My good boy, so am I !” 

“ You !” returned Tom. “ You are the 
picture of Independence. Mr. Harthouse, I 
am in a horrible mess. You have no idea 
what a state I have got myself into, and my 
sister might have got me out of it if she would 
only have done it.” 

He took to biting the rosebuds now, and 
tearing them away from his teeth with a hand 
that trembled like an infirm old man’s. 

After one exceedingly observant look at 
him, his companion relapsed into his lightest 
air. 

“ Tom, you are inconsiderate ; you expect 
too much of your sister. You have had 
money of her, you dog, you know you have.” 

“ Well, Mr. Harthouse, I know I have. 
How else was I to get it ? Here’s old Boun- 
derby always boasting that at my age he 
lived upon two-pence a month, or something 
of that sort. Here’s my father drawing what 
he calls a line, and tying me down to it, neck 
and heels. Here’s my mother who never has 
anything of her own, except her complaints. 
What is a fellow to do for money, and where 
am I to look for it, if not to my sister !” 

He was almost crying, and scattered the 


buds about by dozens. Mr. Harthouse took 
him persuasively by the coat. 

“But, dear Tom, if your sister has not 
got it.” 

“Not got it, Mr. Harthouse? I don’t say 
she has got it. I may have wanted more 
than she was likely to have got. But then 
she ought to get it. She could get it. It’s 
of no use pretending to make a secret of 
matters now, after what I have told you 
already ; you know she didn’t marry old 
Bounderby for her own sake, or for his sake, 
but for my sake. Then why doesn’t she get 
what I want, out of him, for my sake ? She 
is not obliged to say what she is going to do 
with it ; she is sharp enough ; she could 
manage to coax it out of him if she chose. 
Then why doesn’t she choose when I tell her 
of what consequence it is? But no. There 
she sits in his company like a stone, instead 
of making herself agreeable and getting it 
easily. I don’t know what you may call this, 
but I call it unnatural conduct.” 

There was a piece of ornamental water 
immediately below the parapet, on the other 
side, into which Mr. James Harthouse had a 
very strong inclination to pitch Mr. Thomas 
Gradgrind, Junior, as the injured men of 
Coketown threatened to pitch their property 
into the Atlantic. But he preserved his easy 
attitude, and nothing more solid went over 
the stone balustrade# than the accumulated 
rosebuds now floating about a little surface- 
island. 

“My dear Tom,” said Harthouse, “let me 
try to be your banker.” 

“For God’s sake,” replied Tom, suddenly, 
“ don’t talk to me about bankers !” and very 
white he looked in contrast with the roses. 
Very white. 

Mr. Harthouse, as a thoroughly well bred 
man, accustomed to the best society, was not 
to be surprised — he could as soon have been 
affected — but he raised his eyelids a little 
more, as if they were lifted by a feeble touch 
of wonder. Though it was as much against 
the precepts of his school to wonder, as it 
was against the doctrines of the Gradgrind 
College. 

“What is the present need, Tom? Three 
figures! Out with them! Say what they 
are.” 

“ Mr. Harthouse,” returned Tom, actually 
crying now ; and his tears were better than 
his injuries, however pitiful a figure he made ; 
“ it’s too late ; the money is of no use to me 
at present. I should have had it before, to 
be of use to me. But I am very much obliged 
to you ; you’re a true friend.” 

“ A true friend ! Whelp, whelp !” thought 
Mr. Harthouse, lazily ; “ what an Ass you 
are !” 

“ And I take your offer as a great kind- 
ness,” said Tom, grasping his hand. “ As a 
great kindness, Mr. Harthouse.” 

“ Well,” returned the other, “ it may be of 
more use by and by. And, my good fellow, 


HARD TIMES. 


65 


if you will open your bedevilments to me, 
when they next come thick upon you, I may 
show you better ways out of them than you 
can find for yourself.” 

“ Thank you,” said Tom, shaking his head 
dismally, and eating rosebuds. “ I wish I had 
known you sooner, Mr. Harthouse.” 

“ Now, you see, Tom,” said Mr. Harthouse 
in conclusion ; tossing a rose or two over 
himself, as a contribution to the island, which 
was always drifting to the wall as if it wanted 
to become a part of the mainland ; “ every 
man is selfish in everything he does, and I am 
exactly like the rest of my fellow creatures. 
I am desperately intent the languor of his 
desperation being quite tropical ; “ on your 
softening towards your sister — which you 
ought to do ; and on your being a more loving 
and agreeable sort of brother — which you 
ought to be.” 

“ I will be, Mr. Harthouse.” 

“ No time take the present, Tom. Begin at 
once.” 

“ Certainly I w r ill. And my sister Loo 
shall say so.” 

“ Having made which bargain, Tom,” said 
Harthouse, clapping him on the shoulder 
again, with an air which left him at liberty 
to infer — as he did, poor fool — that this con- 
dition was imposed upon him in mere careless 
good nature, to lessen his sense of obligation, 
“ we will tear ourselves asunder until dinner- 
time.” 

When Tom appeared before dinner ; though 
his mind seemed heavy enough, his body was 
on the alert, and he appeared before Mr. 
Bounderby came in. “ I didn’t mean to be 
cross, Loo,” he said, giving her his hand, and 
kissing her. “ I know you are fond of me, 
and you know I am fond of you.” 

After this, there was a smile upon Louisa’s 
face that day, for some one else. Alas, for 
some one else ! 

“ So much the less is the whelp the only 
creature that she cares for,” thought James 
Harthouse, reversing the reflection of his first 
day’s knowledge of her pretty face. “ So 
much the less, so much the less.” 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

The next morning was too bright a morn- 
ing for sleep, and James Harthouse rose 
early, and sat in the pleasant bay window 
of his dressing-room, smoking the rare to- 
bacco that had had so wholesome an influ- 
ence on his young friend. Reposing in the 
sunlight, with the fragrance of his eastern 
pipe about him. and the dreamy smoke 
vanishing into the air, so rich and soft with 
summer odors, he reckoned up his. advan- 
tages as an idle winner might count his gains. 
He was not at all bored for the time, and 
could give his mind to it. 

He bad established a confidence with her, 
from which her husband was excluded. He 
had established a confidence with her, that 
absolutely turned upon her indifference 


towards her husband, and the absence, now 
and at all times, of any congeniality between 
them. He had artfully, but plainly assured 
her, that he knew her heart in its last most 
delicate recesses ; he had come so near to her 
through its tenderest sentiment ; he had 
associated himself with that feeling ; and the 
barrier behind which she lived, had melted 
away. All very odd, and very satisfactory ! 

And yet he had not, even now, any ear- 
nest wickedness of purpose in him. Publicly 
and privately, it were much better for the 
age in which he lived, that he and the legion 
of whom he was one were designedly bad, 
than indifferent and purposeless. It is the 
drifting icebergs setting with any current any- 
where, that wreck the ships. 

When the Devil goeth about like a roar- 
ing lion, he goeth about in a shape by which 
few but savages and hunters are attracted. 
But, when he is trimmed, varnished, and 
polished, according to the mode ; when he 
is aweary of vice, and aweary of virtue, 
used up as to brimstone, and used up as to 
bliss ; then, whether he take to the serving 
out of red tape, or to the kindling of red 
fire, he is the very Devil. 

So, James Harthouse reclined in the window, 
indolently smoking, and reckoning up the 
steps he had taken on the road by which he 
happened to be travelling. /The end to which 
it led was before him, pretty plainly; but 
he troubled himself with no calculations 
about it. What will be, will be. 

As he had rather a long ride to take that 
day — for there was a public occasion “ to do” 
at some distance, which afforded a tolerable 
opportunity of going in for the Gradgrind 
men — he dressed early, and went down to 
breakfast. He was anxious to see if she had 
relapsed since the previous evening. No. 
He resumed where he had left off. Then 
was a look of interest for him again. 

He got through the day as much (or a 
little) to his own satisfaction, as was to be es 
pected under the fatiguing circumstances 
and came riding back at six o’clock. Ther. 
was a sweep of some half mile between the 
lodge and the house, and he was riding along 
at a foot pace over the smooth gravel, once 
Nicket’s, when Mr. Bounderby burst out o: 
the shrubbery with such violence as to mak 
his horse shy across the road. 

“ Harthouse !” cried Mr. Bounderbj 
“ Have you heard ?” 

“ Heard what ?’ said Harthouse, sootfr 
ing his horse, and inwardly favoring Mi 
Bounderby with no good wishes. 

“ Then you haven't heard !” 

“ I have heard you, and so has this brute. 

I have heard nothing else.” 

Mr. Bounderby, red and hot, planted him- 
self in the centre of the path before the 
horse’s head, to explore his bombshell with 
more effect. 

“ The Bank’s robbed !” 

“ You don’t mean it !’ 


06 


HARD TIMES. 


“ Robbed last night, sir. Robbed in an 
extraordinary manner. Robbed with a false 
key.” 

“ Of much ?” 

Mr. Bounderby, in his desire to make the 
most of it, really seemed mortified by being 
obliged to reply. “ Why, no ; not of very 
much. But it might have been . 7 

“ Of how much ?” 

“ Oh ! as a sum — if you stick to a sum — of 
not more than a hundred and fifty pound,” 
said Bounderby, with impatience. “ But it ? s 
not the sum ; it’s the fact. It’s the fact of 
the Bank being robbed, that’s the important 
circumstance. I am surprised you don’t 
see it.” 

“ My dear Bounderby,” said James, dis- 
mounting, and giving his bridle to his servant, 

“ I do see it ; and am as overcome as you can 
possibly desire me to be, by the spectacle 
afforded to my mental view. Nevertheless, 
I may be allowed, I hope, to congratulate you 
— which I do with all my soul, I assure you 
— on your not having sustained a greater loss.” 

Thank’ee,” replied Bounderby, in a short, 
ungracious manner. “ But I tell you what. 
It mighth ave been twenty thousand pound.” 

“ I suppose it might.” 

“ Suppose it might ? By the Lord, you 
may suppose so. By George !” said Mr. 
Bounderby, with sundry menacing nods and 
shakes of his head, “ It might have been 
twice twenty. There’s no knowing what it 
would have been or wouldn’t have been, as 
it was, but for the fellows’ being disturbed.” 

Louisa had come up now, and Mrs. Sparsit, 
and Bitzer. 

“ Here’s Tom Gradgrind’s daughter knows 
pretty well what it might have been, if you 
don’t,” blustered Bounderby. “Dropped, sir, 
as if she was shot, when I told her ! Never 
knew her do such a thing before. Does her 
credit, under the circumstances, in my opinion?” 

She still looked faint and pale. James 
Harthouse begged her to take his arm ; and 
as they moved on very slowly, asked how the 
robbery had been committed. 

“ Why, I am going to tell you,” said 
Bounderby, irritably giving his arm to Mrs. 
Sparsit. “If you hadn’t been so mighty 
particular about the sum, I should have 
begun to tell you before. You know this 
lady (for she is a lady) Mrs. Sparsit ?” 

“ I have already had the honor — ” 

“ Very well. And this young man, Bitzer, 
you saw him too on the same occasion ?” Mr. 
Harthouse inclined his head in assent, and 
Bitzer knuckled his forehead. 

“ Very well. They live at the Bank. You 
know they live at the Bank perhaps? Very 
well. Yesterday afternoon, at the close of 
business hours, everything was put away as 
usual. In the iron room that this young 
fellow sleeps outside of, there was "never 
mind how much. In the little safe in young 
Tom’s closet, the safe used for petty purposes, 
there was a hundred and fifty odd pound.” 


“ Hundred and fifty-four, seven, one,” said 
Bitzer. 

“ Come !” retorted Bounderby, stopping to 
wheel round upon him, “ let’s have none of 
your interruptions. It’s enough to be rob- 
bed while you’re snoring because you’re too 
comfortable, without being put right with 
your four seven ones. I didn’t snore, myself, 
when I was your age, let me tell you. I 
hadn’t victuals enough to snore. And 
I didn’t four seven one. Not if I knew it.” 

Bitzer knuckled his forehead again, in a 
sneaking manner, and seemed at once par- 
ticularly impressed and depressed by the 
instance last given of Mr. Bounderby’s 
moral abstinence. 

“ A hundred and fifty odd pound,” resumed 
Mr. Bounderby. “ That sum of money, young 
Tom locked in his safe ; not a very strong 
safe, but that’s no matter now. Everything 
was left, all right. Some time in the night, 
while this young fellow snored — Mrs. Sparsit, 
ma’am, you say you have heard him snore ?” 

“ Sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit, “ I cannot 
say that I have heard him precisely snore, and 
therefore must not make that statement. 
But on winter evenings, when he has fallen 
asleep at his table, I have heard him what I 
should prefer to describe as partially choke, 
I have heard him on such occasions produce 
sounds of a nature similar to what may be 
sometimes heard in Dutch clocks. Not,” 
said Mrs. Sparsit, with a lofty sense of giving 
strict evidence, “ that I would convey any 
imputation on his moral character. Far from 
it. I have always considered Bitzer a young 
man of the most upright principle ; and to 
that I beg to bear my testimony.” 

“ Well !” said the exasperated Bounderby, 
“ while he was snoring, or choking, or Dutch- 
clocking, or something or other — being asleep 
— some fellows, somehow, whether previously 
concealed in the house or not remains to be 
seen, got to young Tom’s safe, forced it, and 
abstracted the contents. Being then dis- 
turbed, they made off ; letting themselves out 
at the main door, and double-locking it again 
(it was double-locked, and the key under 
Mrs. Sparsit’s pillow) with a false key, which 
was picked up in the street near the Bank, 
about twelve o’clock to-day. No alarm takes 
place, till this chap, Bitzer, turns out this 
morning and begins to open and prepare the 
offices for business. Then, looking at Tom’s 
safe, he sees the door ajar, and finds the lock 
forced, and the money gone.” 

“ Where is Tom, by the by ?” asked Hart- 
house, glancing round. 

“ He has been helping the police,” said 
Bounderby, “ and stays behind at the Bank. 
I wish these fellows had tried to rob me 
when I was at his time of life. They would 
have been out of pocket, if they had invested 
eighteenpence in the job ; I can tell ’em 
that.” 

“ Is anybody suspected?” 

“ Suspected ? I should think there was 


HARD TIMES. 


67 


somebody suspected. Egod !” said Bounderby, 
relinquishing Mrs. Sparsit’s arm to wipe his 
heated head, “ Josiah Bounderby of Coke- 
town, is not to be plundered and nobody 
suspected. No, thank you !” 

Might Mr. Harthouse inquire, Who was 
suspected ? 

“ Well,*’ said Bounderby, stopping, and 
facing about to confront them all, “ I’ll tell 
you. It’s not to be mentioned everywhere ; 
it’s not to be mentioned anywhere ; in order 
that the scoundrels concerned (there’s a gang 
of ’em) may be thrown off their guard. So 
take this in confidence. Now wait a bit.” 
Mr. Bounderby wiped his head again. “ What 
should you say to here he violently ex- 
ploded ; “ to a Hand being in it ?” 

“ I hope,” said Harthouse, lazily, “ not our 
friend Blackpot ?” 

“ Say Pool instead of Pot, sir,” returned 
Bounderby, “ and that’s the man.” 

Lousia faintly uttered some word of incre- 
dulity and surprise. 

“ 0 yes! I know!” said Bounderby, imme- 
diately catching at the sound. “ I know ! 
I am used to that. I know all about it. 
They are the finest people in the w'orld, these 
fellows are. They have got the gift of the gab, 
they have. They only want to have their 
rights explained to them, they do. But I 
tell you what. Show me a dissatisfied Hand, 
and I’ll show you a man that’s fit for any- 
thing bad, I don’t care what it is.” 

Another of the popular fictions of Coke- 
town, which some pains had been taken to 
disseminate — and which some people really 
believed. 

“ But I am acquainted with these chaps,” 
said Bounderby, “I can read ’em off like 
books. Mrs. Sparsit, ma’am, I appeal to 
you. What warning did I give that fellow, 
the first time he set foot in the house, when 
the express object of his visit was to know how 
he could knock Religion oyer, and floor the 
Established Church? Mrs. Sparsit, in point 
of high connexions, you are on a level with 
the aristocracy, — did I say, or did I not say, 
to that fellow, ‘ you can’t hide the truth from 
me ; you are not the kind of fellow I like 5 
you’ll come to no good.’ ” 

“ Assuredly, sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit, 
“ you did, in a highly impressive manner, 
give him such an admonition.” 

“ When he shocked you, ma’am,” said 
Bounderby; “when he shocked your feelings?” 

“Yes, sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit, with a 
meek shake of her head, “he certainly did 
so. Though I do not mean to say but that 
my feelings may be weaker on such points — 
more foolish, if the term is preferred — than 
they might have been, if I had always occu- 
pied my present position.” 

Mr. Bounderby stared with a bursting 
pride at Mr. Harthouse, as much as to say, 
“ I am the proprietor of this female, and she’s 
worth your attention, I think ?” Then 
resumed his discourse. 


“You can recall for yourself, Harthouse, 
what I said to him when you saw him. I 
didn’t mince the matter with him. I am 
never mealy with ’em. I know ’em. Yery 
well, sir. Three days after that, he bolted. 
Went off, nobody knows where : as my mother 
did in my infancy — only with this difference, 
that he is a worse subject than my mother, 
if possible. What did he do before he went? 
What do you say Mr. Bounderby, with 
his hat in his hand, gave a beat upon the 
crown at every little division of his sentences, 
as if it were a tambourine; “to his being 
seen — night after night — watching the Bank? 
— To his lurking about there — after dark ! — 
To its striking Mrs. Sparsit — that he could 
be lurking for no good — To her calling Bitzer’s 
attention to him, and their both taking 
notice of him — And to its appearing on 
inquiry to-day — that he was also noticed by 
the neighbours ? ” Having come to the 
climax, Mr. Bounderby, like an oriental 
dancer, put his tambourine on his head. 

“ Suspicious,” said James Harthouse, “ cer- 
tainly.” 

“ I think so, sir,” said Bounderby, with a 
defiant nod. “I think so. But there are 
more of ’em in it. There’s an old woman. 
One never hears of these things till the mis- 
chiefs done ; all sorts of defects are found 
out in the stable door after the horse is 
stolen ; there’s an old woman turns up now. 
An old woman who seems to have been flying 
into town on a broomstick, every now and 
then. She watches the place a whole day 
before this fellow begins, and, on the night 
when you saw him, she steals away with him 
and holds a council with him — I suppose, to 
make her report on going off duty, and be 
damned to her.” 

There was such a person in the room that 
night, and she shrunk from observation, 
thought Louisa. 

“ This is not all of ’em, even as we already 
know ’em,” said Bounderby, with many nods 
of hidden meaning. “But I have said 
enough for the present. You’ll have the 
goodness to keep it quiet, and mention it to 
no one. It may take time, but we shall have 
’em. It’s policy to give ’em line enough, and 
there’s no objection to that.” 

“ Of course, they will be punished with the 
utmost rigor of the law, as notice-boards 
observe,” replied James Harthouse, “ and serve 
them right. Fellows who go in for Banks 
must take the consequences. If there, were 
no consequences, we should all go in. for 
Banks.” He had gently taken Louisa’s 
parasol from her hand, and had put it up for 
her ; and she walked under its shade, though 
the sun did not shine there. 

“For the present, Loo Bounderby,” said 
her husband, “here’s Mrs. Sparsit to look 
after. Mrs. Sparsit’s nerves have been acted 
upon by this business, and she’ll stay here a 
day to two. So, make her comfortable.” 

“ Thank you very much, sir,” that discreet 


G8 


HARD TIMES. 


lady observed, “ but pray do not let My com- 
fort be a consideration. Anything will do 
for Me.” 

It soon appeared that if Mrs. Sparsit had a 
failing in her association with that domestic 
establishment, it was that she was so exces- 
sively regardless of herself and regardful of 
others, as to be a nuisance. On being shown 
her chamber, she was so dreadfully sensible 
of its comforts as to suggest the inference 
that she would have preferred to pass the 
night on the mangle in the laundry. True, 
the Powlers and the Scadgerses were accus- 
tomed to splendor, “ but it is my duty to 
remember,” Mrs. Sparist was fond of observ- 
ing with a lofty grace : particularly when any 
of the domestics were present, “ that what I 
was, I am no longer. Indeed,” said she, 
“if I could altogether cancel the remem- 
brance that Mr. Sparsit was a Powler, or 
that I myself am related to the Scadgers 
family ; or if I could even revoke the fact, 
and make myself a person of common 
descent and ordinary connexions ; I would 
gladly do so. I should think it. under exist- 
ing circumstances, right to do so.” The same 
Hermitical state of mind led to her renuncia- 
tion of made dishes and wines at dinner, 
until fairly commanded by Mr. Bounderby 
to take them ; when she said, “ Indeed you 
are very good, sir and departed from a 
resolution of which she had made rather 
formal and public announcement, to “ wait for 
the simple mutton.” She was likewise deeply 
apologetic for wanting the salt ; and, feeling 
amiably bound to bear out Mr. Bounderby 
to the fullest extent in the testimony he had 
borne to her nerves, occasionally sat back 
in her chair and silently wept ; at which 
periods a tear of large dimensions, like a 
crystal ear-ring, might be observed (or 
rather, must be, for it insisted on public 
notice) sliding down her Roman nose. 

But Mrs. Sparsit’s greatest point, first and 
last, was her determination to pity Mr. 
Bounderby. There were occasions when in 
looking at him she was involuntarily moved 
to shake her head, as who should say, “ Alas! 
poor Yorick !” After allowing herself to be 
betrayed into these evidences of emotion, she 
would force a lambent brightness, and would 
be fitfully cheerful, and would say, “ You 
have still good spirits, sir, I am thankful to 
find and would appear to hail it as a blessed 
dispensation that Mr. Bounderby bore up as 
he did. One idiosyncrasy for which she 
often apologised, she found it excessively 
difficult to conquer. She had a curious pro- 
pensity to call Mrs. Bounderby “ Miss Grad- 
grind,” and yielded to it some eighty or 
ninety times in the course of the evening. 
Her repetition of this mistake covered Mrs. 
Sparsit with modest confusion ; but indeed, 
she said, it seemed so natural to say Miss 
Gradgrind : whereas, to persuade herself 
that the young lady whom she had had the 
happiness of knowing from a child could be 


really and truly Mrs. Bounderby, she found 
almost impossible. It was a further singu- 
larity of this remarkable case, that the more 
she thought about it, the more impossible if 
appeared; “the differences,” she observed, 
being such — ” 

In the drawing-room after dinner, Mr 
Bounderby tried the case of the robbery, 
examined the witnesses, made notes of the 
evidence, found the suspected persons guilty, 
and sentenced them to the extreme punish- 
ment of the law. That done, Bitzer was dis- 
missed to town with instructions to recom- 
mend Tom to come home by the mail- 
train. 

When candles were brought, Mrs. Sparsit 
murmured, “ Don’t be low, sir. Pray let me 
see you cheerful, sir, as I used to do.” Mr. 
Bounderby, upon whom these consolations 
had begun to produce the effect of making 
him, in a bull-headed blundering way, sen- 
timental, sighed like some large sea-animal. 
“I cannot bear to see you so, sir,” said 
Mrs. Sparsit. “ Try a hand at backgammon, 
sir, as you used to do when I had the honor 
of living under your roof.” “ I haven’t played 
backgammon, ma’am,” said Mr. Bounderby, 
“since that time.” “No, sir,” said Mrs. 
Sparsit, soothingly, “ I am aware that you 
have not. I remember that Miss Gradgrind 
takes no interest in the game. But I shall 
be happy, sir, if you will condescend.” 

They played near a window, opening on the 
garden. It was a fine night : not moonlight, 
but sultry and fragrant. Louisa and Mr. 
Harthouse strolled out into the garden, where 
their voices could be heard in the stillness, 
though not what they said. Mrs. Sparsit, 
from her place at the backgammon board, 
was constantly straining her eyes to pierce 
the shadows without. “What’s the matter, 
ma’am?” said Mr. Bounderby: “you don’t 
see a Fire, do you?” “Oh dear no, sir,” 
returned Mrs. Sparsit. “ I was thinking of the 
dew?” “What have you got to do with 
the dew, ma’am ?” said Mr. Bounderby. 
“It’s not myself, sir,” returned Mrs. Spar- 
sit. “ I am fearful of Miss Gradgrind’s 
taking cold.” “ She never takes cold,” said 
Mr. Bounderby. “ Really, sir ?” said Mrs. 
Sparsit, and was affected with a cough in her 
throat. 

When the time drew near for retiring, Mr. 
Bounderby took a glass of water. “ Oh, sir ?” 
said Mrs Sparsit. “Not your sherry warm, 
with lemon-peel and nutmeg ?” “ Why, I 

have got out of the habit of taking it 
now, ma’am,” said Mr. Bounderby. “The 
more’s the pity, sir,” returned Mrs. Spar- 
sit ; “ you are losing all your good old habits. 
Cheer up, sir! If Miss Gradgrind will por- 
mit me, I will offer to make it for you, as I 
have often done.* 

Miss Gradgrind readily permitting Mrs. 
Sparsit to do anything she pleased, that 
considerate lady made the beverage, and 
handed it to Mr. Bounderby. “It will do 


Hard tires. 


69 


you good, sir. It will warm your heart. 
It is the sort of thing you want, and ought to 
take, sir.” And when Mr. Bounderby said, 
“Your health, ma’am!” she answered with 
great feeling, “ Thauk you, sir. The same to 
you, and happiness also.” Finally, she wished 
him good night, with great pathos ; and Mr. 
Bounderby went to bed, with a maudlin per- 
suasion that he had been crossed in some- 
thing tender though he could not, for his life, 
have mentioned what it was. 

Long after Louisa had undressed and 
lain down, she watched and waited for her 
brother’s coming home. That could hardly be, 
she knew, until an hour past midnight ; but 
in the country silence, which did anything 
but calm the trouble of her thoughts, time 
lagged wearily. At last, when the darkness 
and stillness had seemed for hours to thicken 
one another, she heard the bell at the gate. 
She felt as though she would have been glad 
that it rang on until daylight ; but it ceased, 
and the circles of its last sound spread out 
fainter and wider in the air, and all was dead 
again. 

She waited yet some quarter of an hour, as 
she judged. Then she arose, put on a loose 
robe, and went out of her room in the dark, 
and up the staircase to her brother’s room. 
His door being shut, she softly opened it and 
spoke to him, approaching his bed with a 
noiseless step. 

She kneeled down beside it, passed her arm 
over his neck, and drew his face to hers. She 
knew that he only feigned to be asleep, but 
she said nothing to him. 

He started by and by, as if he were just 
then awakened, and asked who that was, and 
what was the matter ? 

“ Tom, have you anything to tell me ? 
If ever you loved me in your life, and have 
anything concealed from every one besides, 
tell it to me.” 

“ I don't know what you mean, Loo. You 
have been dreaming.” 

“ My dear Brother,” she laid her head down 
on his pillow, and her hair flowed over him 
as if she would hide him from every one but 
herself : “ is there nothing that you have to 
tell me ? Is there nothing you can tell me, 
if you will? You can tell me nothing that will 
change me. 0 Tom, tell me the truth !” 

“ I don’t know what you mean, Loo.”. 

“ As you lie here alone, my dear, in the 
melancholy night, so you must lie somewhere 
one night, where even I, if I am living then, 
shall have left you. As I am here beside you, 
barefoot, unclothed, undistinguishable in dark- 
ness, so must I lie through all the night of 
my decay, until I am dust. In the name ot 
that time, Tom, tell me the truth now !” 

“ What is it you want to know ?” 

“ You may be certain in the energy of 
her love she took him to her bosom as if he 
were a child ; “ that I will not reproach you. 
You may be certain that I will be compassion- 
ate and true to you. You may be certain 


that I will save you at whatever cost. O 
Tom, have you nothing to tell me ? Whisper 
very softly. Say only ‘ yes. 1 and I shall un- 
derstand you !” 

She turned her ear to his lips, but he re- 
mained doggedly silent. 

“ Not a word, Tom ?” 

“ How can I say Yes, or how can I say No, 
when I don’t know what you mean ? Loo, 
you are a brave, kind girl, worthy I begin to 
think of a better brother than I am. But I 
have nothing more to say. Go to bed, go to 
bed.” 

“ You are tired,” she whispered presently, 
more in her usual way. 

“ Yes, I am quite tired out.” 

“ You have been so hurried and disturbed 
to-day. Have any fresh discoveries been 
made ?” 

“ Only those you have heard of, from — 
him.” 

“ Tom, have you said to any one that we 
made a visit to those people, and that we saw 
those three together ?” 

“ No. Didn’t you yourself particularly ask 
me to keep it quiet, when you asked me to go 
there with you ?” 

“ Yes. ‘ But I did not know then what was 
going to happen.” 

“ Nor I neither. How could I ?” 

He was very quick upon her with this re- 
tort. 

“ Ought I to say, after what has happened,” 
said his sister, standing by the bed — she had 
gradually withdrawn herself and risen, “ that 
I made that visit ? Should I say so ? Must 
I say so ?” 

“ Good heavens, Loo,” returned her brother, 
“ you are not in the habit of asking my advice. 
Say what you like. If you keep it to your- 
self, I shall keep it to myself. If you disclose 
it, there’s an end of it.” 

It was too dark for either to see the other’s 
face ; but each seemed very attentive, and to 
consider before speaking, 

“ Tom, do you believe the man I gave the 
money to, is really implicated in this crime ?” 

“I don’t know, I don’t see why he shouldn’t 
be.” 

“ He seemed to me an honest man.” 

“Another person may seem to you dis- 
honest, and yet not be so.” 

There was a pause, for he had hesitated 
and stopped. 

“ In short,” resumed Tom, as if he had 
made up his mind, “if you come to that, per- 
haps I was so far from being altogether in 
his favor, that I took him outside the door 
to tell him quietly, that I thought he might 
consider himself very well olf to get such a 
windfall as he had got from my sister, and, 
that I hoped he would make a good use of it. 
You remember whether I took him out or 
not. I say nothing against the man ; he may 
be a very good fellow, for anything I know ; 
I hope he is.” 

“ Was he offended by what you said ?” 


70 


HARD TIMES. 


“ No, he took it pretty well ; he was civil 
enough. Where are you, Loo V ’ He sat up 
in bed and kissed her. “ Good night, my dear, 
good night!” 

“ You have nothing more to tell me ?” 

“ No. What should I have ? You wouldn’t 
have me tell you a lie ?” 

“ I wouldn’t have you do that to-night, 
Tom, of all the nights in your life ; many and 
much happier as I hope they will be.” 

“ Thank you, my dear Loo. I am so tired, 
that I am sure I wonder I don’t say anything 
to get to sleep. Go to bed, go to bed.” 

Kissing her again, he turned round, drew 
the coverlet over his head, and lay as still as 
if that time had come by which she had adjured 
him. She stood for some time at the bedside 
before she slowly moved away. She stopped 
at the door, looked back when she had opened 
it, and asked him if he had called her ? But 
he lay still, and she softly closed the door 
and returned to her room. 

Then the wretched boy looked cautiously 
up and found her gone, crept out of bed, 
fastened his door, and threw himself upon his 
pillow again ; tearing his hair, morosely 
crying, grudgingly loving her, hatefully but 
impenitently spurning himself, and no less 
hatefully and unprofitably spurning all the 
good in the world. 

CHAPTER XXV. 

Mrs. Sparsit, lying by to recover Ihe tone 
of her nerves in Mr. Bounderby’s retreat, 
kept such a sharp look-out, night and day, 
under her Coriolanian eyebrows, that her eyes, 
like a couple of lighthouses on an iron-bound 
coast, might have warned all prudent mari- 
ners from that bold rock her Roman nose and 
the dark and craggy region in its neighbour- 
hood, but for the placidity of her manner. 
Although it was hard to believe that her 
retiring for the night could be anything but 
a form, so severely wide awake were those 
classical eyes of hers, and so impossible did 
it seem that her rigid nose could yield to any 
relaxing influence, yet her manner of sitting, 
smoothing her uncomfortable, not to say 
gritty, mittens (they were constructed of a 
cool fabric like a meat-safe), or of ambling to 
unknown places of destination with her foot 
in her cotton stirrup, was so perfectly serene, 
that most observers would have been 
constrained to suppose her a dove, em- 
bodied, by some freak of nature, in the 
earthly tabernacle of a bird of the hook- 
beaked order. 

She was a most wonderful woman for 
prowling about the house. How she got 
from story to story, was a mystery beyond 
solution. A lady so decorous in herself, and 
so highly connected, was not to be suspected 
of dropping over the bannisters or sliding 
down them, yet her extraordinary facility of 
locomotion suggested the wild idea. Another 
noticeable circumstance in Mrs. Sparsit was, 
that she was never hurried. She would 


shoot with consummate velocity from the 
roof to the hall, yet would be in full posses- 
sion of her breath and dignity on the moment 
of her arrival there. Neither was she ever 
seen by human vision to go at a great pace. 

She took very kindly to Mr. Harthouse. 
and had some pleasant conversation with him 
soon after her arrival. She made him her 
stately curtsey in the garden, one morning 
before breakfast. 

“ It appears but yesterday, sir,” said Mrs. 
Sparsit, “ that I had the honor of receiving 
you at the Bank, when you were so good as 
to wish to be made acquainted with Mr. 
Bounderby’s address.” 

“An occasion, I am sure, not to be for- 
gotten by myself in the course of Ages,” said 
Mr. Harthouse, inclining his head to Mrs. 
Sparsit with the most indolent of all possible 
airs. 

“ We live in a singular world, sir,” said 
Mrs. Sparsit. 

“I have had the honor, by a coincidence 
of which I am proud, to have made a remark, 
similar in effect, though not so epigrammati- 
cally expressed.” 

“A singular world, I would say, sir,” 
pursued Mrs. Sparsit ; after acknowledging 
the compliment with a drooping of her dark 
eyebrows, not altogether so mild in its ex- 
pression as her voice was in its dulcet tones ; 
“ as regards the intimacies we form at one 
time, with individuals we are quite ignorant 
of, at another. I recall, sir, that on that occa- 
sion you went so far as to say you were 
actually apprehensive of Miss Gradgrind.” 

“ Your memory does me more honor than 
my insignificance deserves. I availed myself 
of your obliging hints to correct my timidity, 
and it is unnecessary to add that they were 
perfectly accurate. Mrs. Sparsit’s talent for 
— in fact for anything requiring accuracy — 
with a combination of strength of mind — and 
Family — is too habitually developed to admit 
of any question.” He was almost falling 
asleep over this compliment ; it took him so 
long to get through, and his mind wandered 
so much in the course of its execution. 

“ You found Miss Gradgrind — I really can- 
not call her Mrs. Bounderby ; it’s very absurd 
of me — as youthful as I described her?” 
asked Mrs. Sparsit, sweetly. 

“ You drew her portrait perfectly,” said 
Mr. Harthouse. “Presented her dead 
image.” 

“Very engaging, sir?” said Mrs. Sparsit, 
causing her mittens slowly to revolve over 
one another. 

“ Highly so.” 

“It used to be considered,” said Mrs. 
Sparsit, “ that Miss Gradgrind was wanting 
in animation, but I confess she appears to me 
considerably and strikingly improved in that 
respect. Ay, and indeed here is Mr. Boun 
derby!” cried Mrs. Sparsit, nodding her 
head a great many times, as if she had been 
talking and thinking of no one else. “ How 


HARD TIMES. 


71 


do you find yourself this morning, sir? Pray 
let us see you cheerful, sir.” 

Now, these persistent assuagements of his 
misery, and lightenings of his load, had by 
this time begun to have the effect of making 
Mr. Bounderby softer than usual towards Mrs. 
Sparsit, and harder than usual to most 
other people from his wife downward. So, 
when Mrs. Sparsit said with forced lightness 
of heart, “You want your breakfast, sir, but 
I dare say Miss Gradgrind will soon be here 
to preside at the table,” Mr. Bounderby 
replied, “If I waited to be taken care of by 
my wife, ma’am, I believe you know pretty 
well I should wait till Doomsday, so I’ll 
trouble you to take charge of the teapot.” 
Mrs. Sparsit complied, and assumed her old 
position at table. 

This again made the excellent woman vastly 
sentimental. She was so humble withal, that 
when Louisa appeared, she rose, protesting 
she never could think of sitting in that place 
under existing circumstances, often as she 
had had the honor of making Mr. Bounderby ’s 
breakfast, before Mrs. Gradgrind — she begged 
pardon, she meant to say, Miss Bounderby 
— she hoped to be excused, but she really 
could not get it right yet, though she trusted 
to become familiar with it by and by — had 
assumed her present position. It was only 
(she observed) because Miss Gradgrind hap- 
pened to be a little late, and Mr. Bounderby’s 
time was so very precious, and she knew it of 
old to be so essential that he should break- 
fast to the moment, that she had taken the 
liberty of complying with his request : long 
as his will had been a law to her. 

“ There ! Stop where you are, ma’am,” said 
Mr. Bounderby, “ stop where you are ! Mrs. 
Bounderby will be very glad to be relieved of 
the trouble, I believe.” 

“ Don’t say that, sir,” returned Mrs. 
Sparsit, almost with severity, “ because that 
is very unkind to Mrs. Bounderby. And to 
be unkind is not to be you, sir.” 

“You may set your mind at rest ma’am. — 
You can take it very quietly, can’t you 
Loo?” said Mr. Bounderby, in a blustering 
way, to his wife. 

“ Of course. It is of no moment. Why should 
it be of any importance to me?” 

“ Why should it be of any importance to 
any one, Mrs. Sparsit, ma’am?” said Mr. 
Bounderby, swelling with a sense of slight. 
“You attach too much importance to these 
things, ma’am. By George, you’11 be cor- 
recti d in some of your notions here. You are 
old fashioned, ma’am. You are behind Tom 
Gradgrind’s children’s time.” 

“ vVliat is tiie matter with you?” asked 
Louisa, coldly surprised. “ What has given ! 
you offence?” 

“ Offence !” repeated Bounderby. “ Do you 
suppose if there was any offence given me I 
shouldn’t name it, and request to have it cor- 
rected ? I am a straightforward man, I believe. ! 
f don’t go beating about for side-winds.” 


“I suppose no one ever had occasion to 
think you too diffident, or too delicate,” 
Louisa answered him composedly : “ I have 
never made that objection to you, either as a 
child or as a woman. I don’t understand 
what you would have.” 

“ Have?” returned Mr. Bounderby, “ No- 
thing. Otherwise, don’t you, Loo Bounderby, 
know thoroughly well that I, Josiah Boun- 
derby of Coketown, would have it ?” 

She looked at him, as he struck the table 
and made the teacups ring, with a proud 
color in her face that was a new change, Mr. 
Harthouse thought. “ You are incom- 
prehensible this morning,” said Louisa. “Pray 
take no further trouble to explain yourself, I 
am not curious to know your meaning. What 
does it matter I” 

Nothing more was said on this theme, and 
Mr. Harthouse was soon idly gay on indifferent 
subjects. But, from this day, the Sparsit 
action upon Mr. Bounderby threw Louisa 
and James Harthouse more together, and 
strengthened the dangerous alienation from 
her husband and confidence against him 
with another, into which she had fallen by 
degrees so fine that she could not retrace 
them if she tried. But, whether she ever tried 
or no, lay hidden in her own closed heart. 

Mrs. Sparsit was so much affected on this 
particular occasion, that, assisting Mr. Boun- 
derby to his hat after breakfast, and being 
then alone with him in the hall, she 
impriuted a chaste kiss upon his hand, mur- 
mured “ my benefactor !” and retired, over- 
whelmed with grief. Yet it is an indubitable 
fact, within the cognizance of this history, 
that five minutes after he had left the house, 
in the self-same hat, the same descendant of 
the Scadgerses and connexion by matrimony 
of the Powlers, shook her right-handed mitten 
at his portrait, made a contemptuous grimace 
at that work of art, and said “ Serve you 
right, you Noodle, and I am glad of it!” 

Mr. Bounderby had not been long gone, 
when Bitzer appeared. Bitzer had come down 
by train, shrieking and rattling over the long 
line of arches that bestrode the wild country 
of past and present coal-pits, with an express 
from Stone Lodge. It was a hasty note to 
inform Louisa, that Mrs. Gradgrind lay 
very ill. She had never been well, within her 
daughter’s knowledge ; but, she had declined 
within the last few days, had continued sink- 
ing all through the night, and was now as 
nearly dead, as her limited capacity of being 
in any state that implied the ghost of an in- 
tention to get out of it, allowed. 

Accompanied by the lightest of porters, 
fit colorless servitor at Death’s door when 
Mrs. Gradgrind knocked, Louisa rumbled to 
Coketown, over the coal-pits past and present, 
and was whirled into its smoky jaws. She 
dismissed the messenger to his own devices, 
and rode away to her old home. 

She had seldom been there, since her mar- 
riage. Her father was usually sifting and 


72 


HARD TIMES. 


sifting at his parliamentary cinder-heap in 
London (without being observed to turn up 
many precious articles among the rubbish), 
and was still hard at it in the national dus-t- 
yard. Her mother had taken it rather as a 
disturbance than otherwise, to be visited, 
as she reclined upon her sofa ; young people, 
Louisa felt herself all unfit for ; Sissy she 
had never softened to again, since the night 
when the stroller’s child had raised her eyes 
to look at Mr. Bounderby’s intended wife. 
She had no inducements to go back, and had 
rarely gone. 

Neither, as she approached her old home 
now, did any of the best influences of old 
home descend upon her. The dreams of 
childhood — its airy fables ; its graceful, beau- 
tiful, humane, impossible adornments of the 
world beyond ; so good to be believed in 
once, so good to be remembered when out- 
grown, for then the least among them rises to 
the stature of a great Charity in the heart, suf- 
fering little children to come into the midst of 
it, and to keep with their pure hands a garden 
in the stony ways of this world, wherein it were 
better for all the children of Adam that they 
should oftener sun themselves, simple and trust- 
ful, and not worldly-wise — what had she to 
do with these ? Remembrances of how she 
had journeyed to the little that she knew, by 
the enchanted roads of what she and millions 
of innocent creatures had hoped and ima- 
gined ; of how, first coming upon Reason 
through the tender light of Fancy she had 
seen it a beneficent god, deferring to gods as 
great as itself : not a grim Idol, cruel and 
cold, with its victims bound hand to foot, and 
its big dumb shape set up with a sightless 
stare, never to be moved by anything but so 
many calculated tons of leverage — what had 
she to do with these ? Her remembrances of 
home and childhood, were remembrances of 
the drying up of every spring and fountain in 
her young heart as it gushed out. The golden 
waters were not there. They were flowing for 
the fertilisation of the land where grapes are 
gathered from thorns, and figs from thistles. 

She went with a heavy, hardened kind of 
sorrow upon her, into the house and into her 
mother’s room. Since the time of her leaving 
home, Sissy had lived with the rest of the 
family on equal terms. Sissy was at her 
mother’s side ; and Jane, her sister, now ten 
or twelve years old, was in the room. 

There was great trouble before it could be 
made known to Mrs. Gradgrind that her 
eldest child was there. She reclined, propped 
up, from mere habit, on a couch : as nearly 
iu her old usual attitude, as anything so help- 
less could be kept in. She had positively 
refused to take to her bed ; on the ground that 
if she did, she would never hear the last of it.. 

Her feeble voice sounded so far away in < 
her bundle of shawls, and the sound of : 
another voice addressing her seemed to take 
such a long time in getting down to her ears, 
that she might have' been lying at the bot- 


tom of a well. The poor lady was nearer 
Truth than she ever had been : which had 
much to do with it. 

On being told that Mrs. Bounderby was 
there, she replied, at cross-purposes, that she 
had never called him by that name since he 
married Louisa ; that pending her choice of 
an unobjectionable name, she had called him 
J ; and that she could not at present depart 
from that regulation, not being yet provided 
with a permanent substitute. Louisa had sat 
by her for some minutes, and had spoken to 
her often, before she arrived at a clear under- 
standing who it was. She then seemed to 
come to it all at once. 

“Well, my dear,” said Mrs. Gradgrind, 
“ and I hope you are going on satisfactorily 
to yourself. It was all your father’s doing. 
He set his heart upon it. And he ought to 
know.” 

“ I want to hear of you, mother ; not of 
myself.” 

“ You Want to hear of me, my dear ? 
That’s something new, I am sure, when any- 
body wants to hear of me. Not at all well, 
Louisa. Very faint and giddy.” 

“ Are you in pain, dear mother?” 

“I think there’s a pain somewhere in the 
room,” said Mrs. Gradgrind, “ but I couldn’t 
positively say that I have got it.” 

After this strange speech, she lay silent 
for some time. Louisa, holding her hand, 
could feel no pulse ; but kissing it, could see a 
slight thin thread of life in fluttering motion. 

“ You very seldom see your sister,” said Mrs. 
Gradgrind. “ She grows like you. I wish you 
would look at her. Sissy, bring her here.” 

She was brought, and stood with her hand 
in her sister’s. Louisa had observed her 
with her arm round Sissy’s neck, and she 
felt the difference of this approach. 

“ Do you see the likeness, Louisa ?” 

“ Yes, mother. I should think her like 
me. But ” 

“ Eh ? Yes, I always say so,” Mrs. Grad 
grind cried, with unexpected quickness. 
“ And that reminds me. I want to speak to 
you, my dear. Sissy, my good girl, leave us 
alone a minute.” 

Louisa had relinquished the hand ; had 
thought that her sister’s was a better and 
brighter face than hers had ever been ; had 
seen in it, not without a rising feeling of 
resentment, even in that place and at that 
time, something of the gentleness of the other 
face in the room : the sweet face with the 
trusting eyes, made paler than watching and 
sympathy made it, by the rich dark hair. 

Left alone with her mother, Louisa saw 
her lying with an awful lull upon her face, 
like one who was floating away upon some 
great water, all resistance over, content to be 
carried down the stream. She put the 
shadow of a hand to her lips again, and 
recalled her. 

“ You were going to speak to me, mother.” 

“ Eh ? Yes, to be sure, my dear. You 


HARD TIMES. 


73 


know your father is almost always away now, ; 
and therefore I must write to him about it.” 

“ About what, mother ? Don’t be troubled. 
About what ?” 

“ You must remember, my dear, that when- 
ever I have said anything on aDy subject, I 
have never heard the last of it ; and conse- 
quently, that I have long left off saying any- 
thing.” 

“ lean hear you, mother.” But, it was only by 
dint of bending down her ear, and at the same 
time attentively watching the lips as they 
moved, that she could link such faint and 
broken sounds into any chain of connexion. 

“ You learnt a good deal, Louisa, and so 
did your brother. Ologies of all kinds, from 
morning to night. If there is any Ology left, 
of any description, that has not been worn to 
rags in this house, all I can say is, I hope 
I shall never hear its name.” 

“I can hear you mother, when you have 
strength to go on.” This, to keep her from 
floating away. 

“But there’s something — not an Ology at 
all — ‘that your father has missed, or forgotten, 
Louisa. I don’t know what it is. I have often 
sat with Sissy near me, and thought about it. 

I shall never get its name now. But your 
father may. It makes me restless. I want to 
write to him, to find out for God’s sake, what 
it is. Give me a pen, give me a pen.” 

Even the power of restlessness was gone, 
except from the poor head, which could just 
turn from side to side. 

She fancied, however, that her request had 
been complied with, and that the pen she 
could not have held was in her hand. It 
matters little what figures of wonderful no- 
meaning she began to trace upon her wrap- 
pers. The hand soon stopped in the midst 
of them ; the light that had always been 
feeble and dim behind the weak transpa- 
rency, went out ; and even Mrs. Gradgriud, 
emerged from the shadow in which man 
walketh and disquieteth himself in vain, 
took upon her the dread solemnity of the 
sages and patriarchs. 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

Mrs. Sparsit’s nerves being slow to re- 
cover their tone, the worthy woman made 
a stay of some weeks in duration at Mr. 
Bounderby’s retreat, where, notwithstanding 
her anchorite turn of mind based upon her 
becoming consciousness of her altered sta- 
tion, she resigned herself, with noble forti- 
tude, to lodging, as one may say, in clover, 
and feeding on the fat of the land. During 
the whole term of this recess from the 
guardianship of the Bank, Mrs. Sparsit was 
a pattern of consistency ; continuing to take 
such pity on Mr. Bounderby to his. face, as is 
rarely taken on man, and to call his portrait 
a Noodle to it s face, with the greatest acri- 
mony and contempt. 

Mr. Bounderby, having got it into his 
explosive composition that Mrs. Sparsit was 


; a highly superior woman to perceive that he 
had that general cross upon him in his 
deserts (for he had not yet settled what it 
was), and further that Louisa would have 
objected to her as a frequent visitor if it 
had comported with his greatness that she 
should object to anything he chose to do, 
resolved not to lose sight of Mrs. Sparsit 
easily. So, when her nerves were strung up 
to the pitch of again consuming sweetbreads 
in solitude, he said to her at the dinner- 
table, on the day before her departure, 
“ I tell you what, ma’am ; you shall come 
down here of a Saturday while the fine 
weather lasts, and stay till Monday.” To 
which Mrs. Sparsit returned, in effect, though 
not of the Mohammedan persuasion : “ To 
hear is to obey.” 

Now, Mrs. Sparsit was not a poetical 
woman ; but she took an idea, in the nature 
of an allegorical fancy, into her head. Much 
watching of Louisa, and much consequent 
observation of her impenetrable demeanor, 
which keenly whetted and sharpened Mrs. 
Sparsit’s edge, must have given her as it 
were a lift, in the way of inspiration. She 
created in her mind a mighty staircase, with 
a dark pit of shame and ruin at the bottom : 
and down these stairs, from day to day and 
hour to hour, she saw Louisa coming. 

It became the business of Mrs. Sparsit 
life, to look up at the staircase, and to 
watch Louisa coming down. Sometimes slowly, 
sometimes quickly, sometimes several step3 
at one bout, sometimes stopping, never turn- 
ing back. If she had once turned back, it 
might have been the death of Mrs. Sparsit in 
spleen and grief. 

She had been descending steadily, to the 
day, and on the day, when Mr. Bounderby 
issued the weekly invitation recorded above. 
Mrs. Sparsit was in good spirits, and inclined 
to be conversational. 

“ And pray sir,” said she “ if I may ven- 
ture to ask a question appertaining to any 
subject on which you show reserve — which is 
indeed hardy in me, for I well know you 
have a reason for everything you do — have 
you received intelligence respecting the 
robbery ?” 

“ Why, ma’am, no ; not yet. Under the 
circumstances, I didn’t expect it yet. Rome 
wasn’t built in a day, ma’am.” 

“ Very true, sir,” said Mrs. Sparsit, shaking 
her head. 

“ Nor yet in a week, ma’am.” 

<! No, indeed, sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit, 
with an air of melancholy. 

“In a similar manner,” said Bounderby, 
“ I can wait, you know. If Romulus and 
Remus could wait, Josiah Bounderby can 
wait. They were better off in their youth 
than I was, however. They had a she wolf 
for a nurse ; I had only a she wolf for a 
grandmother. She didn’t give any milk, 
ma’am ; she gave bruises. She was a regular 
Alderney at that.” 


74 


HARD TIMES. 


“ Ak 1 x Mrs. Sparsit sighed and shuddered. 

“No, ma’am,” continued Bounderby, “I 
have not heard anything more about it. I’ts 
in hand, though ; and young Tom, who rather 
sticks to business at present — something new 
for him ; he hadn’t the schooling I had — is 
helping. My injunction is, Keep it quiet, 
and let it seem to blow over. Do what you 
like under the rose, but don’t give a sign of 
what you’re about ; or half a hundred of ’em 
will combine together and get this fellow who 
has bolted, out of reach for good. Keep it 
quiet, and the thieves will grow in confidence 
by little and little, and we shall have ’em.” 

“Yery sagacious indeed, sir,” said Mrs. 
Sparsit. “ Yery interesting. The old woman 
you mentioned, sir ” 

“ The old woman I mentioned, ma’am,” 
said Bounderby, cutting the matter short, as 
it was nothing to boast about, “ is not laid 
hold of ; but, she may take her oath she will be, 
if that is any satisfaction to her villainous old 
mind. In the mean time ma’am, I am of 
opinion, if you ask me my opinion, that the 
less she is talked about, the better.” 

That same evening, Mrs. Sparsit, in her 
chamber window, resting from her packing- 
operations, looked towards her great staircase 
and saw Louisa still descending. 

She sat by Mr. Harthouse, in an alcove in 
the garden, talking very low. He stood 
leaning over her, as they whispered together, 
and his face almost touched her hair. “ If not 
quite !” said Mrs. Sparsit, straining her hawk’s 
eyes to the utmost. Mrs. Sparsit was too distant 
to hear a word of their discourse, or even to 
know that they were speaking softly, other- 
wise than from the expression of their figures ; 
but what they said was this : 

“ You recollect the man, Mr. Harthouse ?” 

“ Oh, perfectly !” 

“ His face, and his manner, and what he 
said ?” 

“ Perfectly. And an infinitely dreary person 
he appeared to me to be. Lengthy and prosy 
in the extreme. It was very knowing to 
hold forth, in the humble-virtue school of 
eloquence ; but, I assure you I thought at 
the time, ‘ My good fellow, you are over-doing 
this !’ ” 

“ It has been very difficult to me to think ill 
of that man,” 

“ My dear Louisa — as Tom says.” Which 
he never did say. “ You know no good of 
the fellow ?” 

“ No, certainly.” 

“ Nor of any other such person ?” 

“ How can I,” she returned, with more of 
her first manner on her than he had lately 
seen, “ when I know nothing of them, men 
or women V 7 

“ My dear Mrs. Bounderby ! Then con- 
sent to receive the submissive representation 
of your devoted friend, who knows some- 
thing of several varieties of his excellent 
fellow-creatures — for excellent they are, 

I have no doubt, in spite of such little foibles 


as always helping themselves to what they 
can get hold of. This fellow talks. Well ; 
every fellow talks. His professing morality 
only deserves a moment’s consideration, as 
being a very suspicious circumstance. All 
sorts of humbugs profess morality, from the 
House of Commons to the House of Correction, 
except our people 5 it really is that exception 
which makes our people quite reviving. You 
saw and heard the case. Here was a com- 
mon man, pulled up extremely short by my 
esteemed friend Mr. Bounderby — who, as we 
know, is not possessed of that delicacy 
which would soften so tight a hand. The 
common man was injured, exasperated, left 
the house grumbling, met somebody who 
proposed to him to go in for some share in this 
Bank business, went in, put something in his 
pocket which had nothing in it before, and 
relieved his mind extremely. Really he 
would have been an uncommon, instead of a 
common, man, if he had not availed himself of 
such an opportunity. Or he may have made 
it altogether, if he had the cleverness. Equally 
probable !” 

“ I almost feel as though it must be bad in 
me,” returned Louisa, after sitting thought- 
ful awhile, “ to be so ready to agree with 
you, and to so lightened in my heart by 
what you say.” 

“ I only say what is reasonable ; nothing 
worse. I have talked it over with my friend 
Tom more than once — of course I remain on 
terms of perfect confidence with Tom — and 
he is quite of my opinion, and I am quite of 
his. Will you walk ?” 

They strolled away, among the lanes be- 
ginning to be indistinct in the twilight — she 
leaning on his arm — and she little thought 
how she was going down, down, down, Mrs. 
Sparsit’s staircase. 

Night and day, Mrs. Sparsit kept it stand- 
ing. When Louisa had arrived at the 
bottom and disappeared in the gulf, it might 
fall in upon her if it would ; but, until then, 
there it w r as to be, a Building, before Mrs. 
Sparsit’s eyes. And there Louisa always 
was, upon it. Always gliding down, down, 
down. 

Mrs. Sparsit saw James Harthouse come 
and go ; she heard of him here and there ; 
she saw the changes of the face he had 
studied ; she, too, remarked to a nicety how 
and when it clouded, how and when it 
cleared ; she kept her lolack eyes wide open, 
with no touch of pity, with no touch of com- 
punction, all absorbed in interest ; but, in the 
interest of seeing her, ever drawing with no 
hand to stay her, nearer and nearer to the 
bottom of this new Giants’ Staircase. 

With all her deference for Mr. Bounderby, 
as contradistinguished from his portrait, 
Mrs. Sparsit had not the smallest intention 
of interrupting the descent. Eager to see it 
accomplished, and yet patient, she waited 
for the last fall as for the ripeness and 
fulness of the harvest of her hopes. Hushed 


HARD TIMES. 


75 


in expectancy, she kept her wary gaze upon 
the stairs ; and seldom so much as darkly 
shook her right mitten (with her fist in it), 
at the figure coming down. 

CHAPTER XXYII. 

The figure descended the great stairs 
steadily, steadily, always verging like a 
weight in deep water to the black gulf at the 
bottom. 

Mr. Gradgrind, apprised of his wife’s de- 
cease, made an expedition from London, and 
buried her in a business-like manner. He 
then returned with promptitude to the 
national cinder-heap, and resumed his sifting 
for the odds and ends he wanted, and his 
throwing of the dust about, into the eyes of 
other people who wanted other odds and 
ends — in fact, resumed his parliamentary 
dnties. 

In the meantime, Mrs. Sparsit kept un- 
winking watch and ward. Separated from her 
staircase all the week by the length of iron 
road dividing Coketown from the countryhouse 
she yet maintained her cat-like observation 
of Louisa, through her husband, through her 
brother, through James Harthouse, through 
the outsides of letters and packets, through 
everything animate and inanimate that at 
anytime went near the stairs. “Your foot 
on the last step, my lady,” said Mrs. Sparsit, 
apostrophising the descending figure, with the 
aid of her threatening mitten, “ and all your 
art shall not avail you.” 

Art or nature though, the original stock 
of Louisa’s character, or the drift of circum- 
stances, upon it, that curious reserve did 
baffle, while it stimulated one as sagacious as 
Mrs. Sparsit. There were times when Mr. 
James Harthouse was not sure of her. There 
were times when he could not read the face 
he had studied so long ; and when this lonely 
girl was a greater mystery to him than any 
woman of the world, with a ring of satellites 
to help her. 

So the time went on, until it happened that 
Mr. Bounderby was called away from home 
by business which required his presence else- 
where, perhaps for three or four days. It 
was on a Friday that he intimated this to 
Mrs. Sparsit at the Bank, adding : “ But 
you’ll go down to-morrow, ma’am, all the 
same. You’ll go down just as if I was there. 
It will make no difference to you.” 

“ Pray, sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit, re- 
proachfully, “ let me beg you not to say that. 
Your absence will make a vast difference to 
me, sir, as I think you very well know.” 

“ Well, ma’am, then you must get on in my 
absence as well as you can,” said Bounderby, 
not displeased. 

“Mr. Bounderby,” retorted Mrs. Sparsit, 
“ your will is to me a law, sir ; otherwise, it 
might be my inclination to dispute your kind 
commands, not feeling sure that it will be quite 
so agreeable to Miss Gradgrind. to receive 
me, as it ever is to your own munificent hos- 


pitality. But you shall say no more, sir. I 
will go, upon your invitation.” 

“ Why. when I invite you to my house, 
ma’am,” said Bounderby, opening his eyes, “ I 
should hope you want no other invitation.” 

“No indeed, sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit, 
“I should hope not. Say no more, sir. I 
would, sir, I could see you gay again.” 

“ What do you mean, ma’am ?” blustered 
Bounderby. 

“ Sir,” rejoined Mrs. Sparsit, “ there was 
wont to be an elasticity in you which I sadly 
miss. Be buoyant, sir!” 

Mr. Bounderby, under the influence of this 
difficult adjuration, backed up by her com- 
passionate eye, could only scratch his head 
in a feeble and ridiculous manner, and after- 
wards assert himself at a distance, by being 
heard to bully the small fry of business all 
the morning. 

“ Bitzer,” said Mrs. Sparsit that afternoon 
when her patron was gone on his journey, 
and the Bank was closing, “ present my com- 
pliments to young Mr. Thomas, and ask him 
if he would step up and partake of a 
lamb chop and walnut ketchup, with a glass 
of India ale?” Young Mr. Thomas being 
usually ready for anything in that way, re- 
turned a gracious answer, and followed on its 
heels himself. “ Mr. Thomas,” said Mrs. 
Sparsit, “ these plain viands being on table, I 
thought you might be tempted.” “ Thankee, 
Mrs. Sparsit,” said the whelp. And 
gloomily fell to. 

“ How is Mr. Harthouse, Mr. Tom ?” 
asked Mrs. Sparsit. 

“ Oh he is all right,” said Tom. 

“ Where may he be at present ?” Mrs. 
Sparsit asked in a light conversational man- 
ner, after mentally devoting the whelp to the 
Furies for being so uncommunicative. 

“ He is shooting in Yorkshire,” said Tom, 
“ Sent Loo a basket half as big as a church, 
yesterday.” 

“ The kind of gentleman now,” said Mrs. 
Sparsit, sweetly, “ whom onb might wager to 
be a good shot !” 

“ Crack,” said Tom. 

He had long been a down-looking young 
fellow, but this characteristic had so increased 
of late that he never raised his eyes to any 
face for three seconds together. Mrs. Sparsit 
consequently had ample means of watching 
his looks if she were so inclined. 

“ Mr. Harthouse is a great favourite of 
mine,” said Mrs. Sparsit, “ as indeed he is of 
most people. May we expect to see him 
again shortly, Mr. Tom ?” 

“ Why, I expect to see him to-morrow,” 
returned the whelp. 

“ Good news !” cried Mrs. Sparsit. 

“ I have got an appointment with him to 
meet him in the evening at the station here,” 
said Tom, “ and I am going to dine with him 
afterwards, I believe. He is not coming 
down to Nickits’s for a week or so, being due 
somewhere else. At least, he says so ; but I 


76 


HARD TIMES. 


shouldn’t wonder if he was to stop here over 
Sunday and stray that way.” 

“ Which reminds me !” said Mrs. Sparsit. 
“ Would you remember a message to your 
sister, Mr. Tom, if I was to charge you with 
one?” 

“ Well ! I’ll try,” returned the reluctant 
whelp, “ if it isn’t a long un.” 

“ It is merely my respectful compliments,” 
said Mrs. Sparsit, “ and I fear I may not 
trouble her with my society this week, being 
still a little nervous and better perhaps by 
my poor self.” 

“ Oh ! If that’s all,” observed Tom, “ it 
wouldn’t matter much, even if I was to forget 
it, for Loo’s not likely to think of you unless 
she sees you.” 

Having paid for his entertainment with 
this agreeable compliment, he relapsed into a 
hangdog silence until there was no more 
India ale left, when he said, “ Well, Mrs. 
Sparsit, I must be off!” and went off. 

Next day, Saturday, Mrs. Sparsit sat at 
her window all day long : looking at the 
customers coming in and out, watching the 
postmen, keeping an eye on the general 
traffic of the street, revolving many things in 
her mind, but above all, keeping her atten- 
tion on her staircase. The evening come, 
she put on her bonnet and shawl and went 
quietly out : having her reasons for hovering 
in a furtive w’ay about the station by which 
a passenger would arrive from Yorkshire, 
and for preferring to peep into it round 
pillars and corners, and out of ladies’ wait- 
ing-room windows, to appearing in its pre- 
cincts openly. 

Tom was in attendance, and loitered about 
until the expected train came in. It brought 
no Mr. Harthouse. Tom waited until the 
crowd had dispersed, ancf the bustle was 
over, and then referred to a posted list of 
trains and took counsel with porters. That 
done, he strolled away idly, stopping in the 
street and looking up it and down it, and 
lifting his hat off and putting it on again, 
and yawning, and stretching himself, and 
exhibiting all the symptons of mortal weari- 
ness to be expected in one who had still to 
wait until the next train should come in, an 
hour and forty minutes hence. 

“ This is a device to keep him out of the 
way,” said Mrs. Sparsit, starting from the 
dull office window whence she had watched 
him last. “ Harthouse is with his sister now !” 

It was the conception of an inspired mo- 
ment, and she shot off with her utmost swift- 
ness to work it out. The station for the 
country house was at the opposite end of the 
town, the time was short, the road not easy, 
but she was so quick in pouncing on a dis- 
engaged coach, so quick in darting out of it, 
producing her money, seizing her ticket, and 
diving into the train, that she was borne 
along the arches spanning the land of coal- 
pits past and present, as if she had been 
caught up in a cloud and whirled away. 


All the journey ; immovable in the ail 
though never left behind ; plain to the dark 
eyes of her mind as the electric wires which 
ruled a colossal strip of music-paper out of 
the evening sky, were plain to the dark eyes 
of her body ; Mrs. Sparsit saw her staircase, 
with the figure coming down. Very near 
the bottom now. Upon the brink of the 
abyss. 

An overcast September evening just at 
nightfall saw beneath its drooping eyelid 
Mrs. Sparsit glide out of her carriage, pass 
down the wooden steps of the little station 
into a stony road, cross it into a green lane, 
and become hidden in a summer-growth of 
leaves and branches. One or two late birds 
sleepily chirping in their nests, and a bat 
heavily crossing and recrossing her, and the 
reek of her own tread in the thick dust that 
felt like velvet, were all that Mrs. Sparsit 
heard or saw until she very softly closed a 
gate. 

She went up to the house, keeping within 
the shrubbery, and went round it, peeping 
between the leaves at the lower windows. 
Most of them were open, as they usually 
were in such warm weather, but there were 
no lights yet, and all was silent. She tried 
the garden with no better effect. She thought 
of the wood, and stole towards it, heedless 
of long grass and briars ; of worms, snails, 
and slugs, and all the creeping things that be. 
With her dark eyes and her hook nose 
warily in advance of her, Mrs. Sparsit 
softly crushed her way through the thick 
undergrowth, so intent upon her object that 
she probably would have done no less, if the 
wood had been a wood of adders. 

Hark ! 

The smaller birds might have tumbled out 
of their nests, fascinated by the glittering of 
Mrs. Sparsit’s eyes in the gloom, as she stopped 
and listened. 

Low voices close at hand. His voice and 
hers. The appointment was a device to keep 
the brother away ! There they were yonder, 
by the felled tree. 

Bending low among the dewy grass, Mrs. 
Sparsit advanced closer to them. She drew 
herself up, and stood behind a tree, like Rob- 
inson Crusoe in his ambuscade against the 
savages — so near to them that at a spring 
and that no great one, she could have 
touched them both. He was there secretly, 
and had not yet shown himself at the house. 
He had come on horseback, and must have 
passed through the neighbouring fields, for 
his horse was tied to the meadow side of the 
fence, within a few paces. 

“ My dearest love,” said he, “ what could I 
do? Knowing you were alone, was it pos- 
sible that I could stay away?” 

“ You may hang your head, to make your- 
self the more attractive. I don’t know what 
they see in you when you hold it up,” thought 
Mrs. Sparsit ; but you little think, my 
dearest love, whose eyes are on you!” 


HARD TIMES. 


77 


That she hung her head, was certain. She 
urged him to go away, she commanded him 
to go away ; but she neither turned her face 
to him nor raised it. Yet it was remarkable 
that she sat as still as ever the amiable woman 
in ambuscade had seen her sit at any period 
in her life. Her hands rested in one another, 
like the hands of a statue, and even her man- 
ner of speaking was not hurried. 

“ My dear child,” said Harthouse ; Mrs. 
Sparsit saw with delight that his arm em- 
braced her ; “ will you not bear with my 
society for a little while ?” 

“ Not here.” 

“ Where Louisa ?” 

“ Not here.” 

“ But we have so little time to make much 
of, and I have come so far. and am altogether 
so devoted, and distracted, and ill-used. 
There never was a slave at once so devoted 
and ill-used. To look for your sunny welcome 
that has warmed me into life, and to be 
received in your frozen .manner, is heart- 
rending.” 

“ Am I to say again, that I must be left to 
myself here ?” 

“ But we must meet, my dear Louisa. Where 
shall we meet ?” 

They both started. The listener started, 
guiltily too, for she thought there was another 
listener among the trees. It was only rain, 
beginning to fall fast, in heavy drops. 

“ Shall I ride up to the house a few minutes 
hence (as you know I have often done before), 
innocently supposing that its master is^ at 
home and will be charmed to receive me ?” 

“ No.” 

“ Your cruel commands are implicitly to be 
obeyed, though I am the most unfortunate 
fellow in the world, I believe, to have been 
insensible to all other women, and to have 
fallen prostrate at last under the foot of the 
most beautiful and the most engaging, and the 
most imperious. My dearest Louisa, I cannot 
go myself, or let you go, in this hard abuse of 
your power.” 

Mrs. Sparsit saw him detain her with his 
encircling arm, and heard him then and there, 
within her (Mrs. Sparsit’s) greedy hearing, 
tell her how he loved her, and how she was 
the stake for which he ardently desired to 
play away all that he had in life. The objects 
he had lately pursued turned worthless beside 
her ; the success that was almost in his grasp 
he flung away from him like the dirt it was, 
compared with her. Its pursuit, nevertheless, 
if it kept him near her, or its renunciation 
if it took him from her, or flight if she 
shared it, or secresy if she commanded it— or 
any fate^ every fate, all was alike to him, so 
that she was true to him, the man who bad 
seen how cast away she was, whom she had 
inspired at their first meeting with an admira- 
tion and interest, of which he had thought 
himself incapable, whom she had received in 
her confidence, who was devoted to her and 
adored her. All this, and more in his hurry. 


and in hers, in the whirl of her own gratified 
malice, in the dread of being discovered, in the 
rapidly increasing noise of heavy rain among 
the leaves, and a thunder-storm rolling up — 
Mrs. Sparsit received into her mind, set off with 
such an unavoidable halo of confusion and 
indistinctness that when at length he climbed 
the fence and led his horse away, she was not 
sure where they were to meet, or when, except 
that they had said it was to be that night. 

But one of them yet remained in the dark- 
ness before her ; and while she tracked that 
one she must be right. “ Oh, my dearest 
love,” thought Mrs. Sparsit, “ you little think 
how well attended you are.” 

Mrs. Sparsit saw her out of the wood, and 
saw her enter the house. What to do next ? 
It rained now, in a sheet of water. Mrs. 
Sparsit’s white stockings were of many 
colors, green predominating ; prickly things 
were in her shoes 5 caterpillars slung them- 
selves in hammocks of their own making, 
from various parts of her dress ; rills ran 
from her bonnet and her Roman nose. In 
such condition Mrs. Sparsit stood hidden in 
the density of the shrubbery, considering what 
next? 

Lo. Louisa coming out of the house ! 
Hastily cloaked and muffled, and stealing 
away. She elopes ! She falls from the low- 
ermost stair, and is swallowed up in the gulf ! 

Indifferent to the rain, and moving with a 
quick determined step, she struck into a side- 
path parallel with the ride. Mrs. Sparsit 
followed in the shadow of the trees at but a 
short distance 5 for it was not easy to keep a 
figure in view going quickly through the um- 
brageous darkness. 

When she stopped to close the side-gate 
without noise, Mrs. Sparsit stopped. WheD 
she went on Mrs. Sparsit went on. She went 
by the way Mrs. Sparsit had come, emerged 
from the green lane, crossed the stony road, 
and ascended the wooden steps to the rail- 
road. A train for Coketown would come 
through presently, Mrs. Sparsit knew ; so she 
understood Coketown to be her first place of 
destination. 

In Mrs. Sparsit’s limp and streaming state, 
no extensive precautions were necessary to 
change her usual appearance ; but she stopped 
under the lee of the station wall, tumbled her 
shawl into a new shape, and put it on over 
her bonnet. So disguised, she had no fear of 
being recognized when she followed up the 
railroad steps, and paid her money in the 
small office. Louisa sat waiting in a corner. 
Mrs. Sparsit sat waiting in another corner. 
Both listened to the thunder, which was loud, 
and to the rain, as it washed off the roof, and 
pattered on the parapets of the arches. Two 
or three lamps were rained and blown out ; 
so both saw the lightning to advantage as it 
quivered and zig-zaged on the iron tracks. 

The seizure of the station with a fit of 
trembling, gradually declining to a complaint 
of the heart, announced the train. Fire and 


78 


HARD TIMES. 


steam, and smoke, and red light ; a hiss, a 
crash, a bell, and a shriek ; Louisa put into 
one carriage, Mrs. Sparsit put into another ; 
and the little station a desert speck in the 
thunder-storm. 

Though her teeth chattered in her head 
from wet and cold, Mrs. Sparsit exulted 
hugely. The figure had plunged down the 
precipice, and she felt herself, as it were, at- 
tending on the body. Could she, who had 
been so active in the getting up of the funeral 
triumph, do less than exult? “She will be 
at Coketown long before him,” thought Mrs. 
Sparsit, “ though his horse is never so good. 
Where will she wait for him ? And where 
will they go together ? Patience. Weshallsee.” 

The tremendous rain occasioned infinite 
confusion when the train stopped at its des- 
tination. Gutters and pipes had burst, drains 
had overflowed, and streets were under water. 
In the first instant of alighting, Mrs. Sparsit 
turned her distracted eyes towards the wait- 
ing coaches, which were in great request. 
“ She will get into one,” she considered, “ and 
will be away before I can follow. At all 
risks of being run over, I must see the 
number, and hear the order given to the 
coachman.” 

But Mrs. Sparsit was wrong in her calcula- 
tion. Louisa got into no coach, and was 
already gone. The black eyes kept upon the 
railroad-carriage in which she had travelled 
settled upon it a moment too late. The door 
not being opened after several minutes, Mrs. 
Sparsit passed it and repassed it, saw nothing, 
looked in, and found it empty. Wet through 
and through ; with her feet squelching and 
squashing in her shoes whenever she moved ; 
with a rash of rain upon her classical visage ; 
with a bonnet like an over-ripe fig ; with all 
her damp clothes spoiled ; with impressions 
of every button, string, and hook-and-eye she 
wore, printed off upon her highly-connected 
back ; with a stagnant verdure on her general 
exterior, such as accumulates on an old park 
fence in a mouldy lane ; Mrs. Sparsit had no 
resource but to burst into tears of bitterness 
and say, “ I have lost her !” 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

The national dustmen, after entertaining 
one another with a great many noisy little 
fights among themselves, had dispersed for 
the present, and Mr. Gradgrind was at home 
for the vacation. 

He sat writing in the room with the deadly- 
statistical clock, proving something no doubt 
— perhaps, in the main, that the Good Sama- 
ritan was a bad Economist. The noise of the 
rain did not disturb him much, but it at- 
tracted his attention sufficiently to make him 
raise his head sometimes, as if he were rather 
remonstrating with the elements. When it 
thundered very loudly, he glanced towards 
Coketown, having it in his mind that some of 
the tall chimneys might be struck by light- 
ning. 


The thunder was rolling into distance, 
and the rain was pouring down like a deluge, 
when the door of his room opened. He looked 
round the lamp upon his table, and saw with 
amazement his eldest daughter. 

“ Louisa !” 

“ Father, I want to speak to you.” 

“ What is the matter? How strange you 
look ! And good Heaven,”' said Mr. Grad- 
grind, wondering more and more, “ have you 
come here exposed to this storm ?” 

She put her hands to her dress as if she 
hardly knew. “ Yes.” Then she uncovered 
her head, and letting her cloak and hood fall 
where they might, stood looking at him ; so 
colorless, so dishevelled, so defiant and 
despairing, that he was afraid of her. 

“ What is it ? I conjure you, Louisa, tell 
me what is the matter.” 

She dropped into a chair before him, and 
put her cold hand on his arm. 

“ Father, you have trained me from my 
cradle.” 

“ Yes, Louisa.” 

“ I curse the hour in which I was born to 
such a destiny.” 

He looked at her in doubt and dread, 
vacantly repeating, “ Curse the hour ? Curse 
the hour ?” 

“ How could you give me life, and take 
from me all the inappreciable things that 
raise it from the state of conscious death? 
Where are the graces of my soul? Where 
are the sentiments of my heart ? What have 
you done, 0 father, what have you done, with 
the garden that should have bloomed once in 
this great wilderness here !” 

She struck herself with both her hands 
upon her bosom. 

“ If it had ever been here, its ashes alone 
would save me from the void in which my 
whole life sinks. I did not mean to say this, 
but father, you remember the last time we 
conversed in this room ?” 

He had been so wholly unprepared for 
what he heard now, that it was with 
some difficulty he answered, “ Yes, Louisa.” 

“What has risen to my lips now would 
have risen to my lips then, if you had given 
me a moment’s help. I don’t reproach you, 
father. What you have never nurtured in 
me you have never nurtured in yourself; 
but 0 ! if you had but done so long ago, or 
had but neglected me, what a much better 
and much happier creature I should have 
been this day !” 

On hearing this after all his care, he bowed 
his head upon his hand and groaned aloud. 

“ Father, if you had known when we were 
last together here, what even I feared while I 
strove against it, as it has been my task from in- 
fancy to strive to repress every natural prompt- 
ing that has arisen in my heart ; if you had 
known that there lingered in my breast, 
sensibilities, affections, weaknesses, capable of 
being cherished into strength, defying all the 
calculations ever made by man, and no more 


HARD TIMES. 


7i 


known to his arithmetic than his Creator is, 
would you have given me to the husband 
whom I am now sure that I hate ?” 

He said, “ No. No, my poor child.’’ 

“ Would you have doomed me, at any time, 
to the frost and blight that have hardened 
and spoiled me ? Would you have robbed 
me — for no one’s enrichment — only for the 
greater desolation of this world — of the imma- 
terial part of my life, the spring and sum- 
mer of my belief, my refuge from what is 
sordid and bad in the real things around me, 
my school in which I should have learnt to 
be more humble aud more trusting with 
them, and to hope in my little sphere to make 
them better ?” 

“ O no, no ! No, Louisa.” 

“ Yet father, if I had been stone blind ; if I 
had groped my way by my sense of touch, 
and had been free, while I knew the shapes 
and surfaces of things, to express my fancy 
somewhat, in regard to them, I should have 
been a million times wiser, happier, more 
loving, more contented, more innocent and 
human in all good respects than I am with 
the eyes I have. Now, hear what I have 
come to say.” 

He moved, to support her with his arm. 
She rising as he did so, they stood close toge- 
ther : she with a hand upon his shoulder, 
looking fixedly and earnestly in his face. 

“ With a hunger and thirst upon me, father, 
which have never been for a moment appeased ; 
with an ardent impulse towards some region 
where rules and figures and definitions were 
not quite absolute ; I have grown up, battling 
every inch of my way.” 

“ I never knew you were unhappy, my 
child.” 

“ Father, I always knew it. In this strife 
I have almost repulsed and crushed my better 
angel into a demon. What I have learned 
has left me doubting, misbelieving, despising, 
regretting what I have not learned ; and 
my dismal resource has been to think that 
life would soon go by, and that nothing in it 
could be worth the pain and trouble of 
contest.” 

“ And you so young, Louisa !” he said with 

pity. 

“ And I so young. In this condition, father 
— for I show you now, without fear or favor, 
the ordinary deadened state of a mind as I 
know it — 3 r ou proposed my husband to me. I 
took him. I never made a pretence to him 
or you that I loved him. I knew, and father 
you knew, that I never did. I was not wholly 
indifferent, for I had a hope of being pleasant 
and useful to Tom. I made that wild escape 
into something visionary, and have gradually 
found out how wild it was. But Tom had 
been the subject of all the little imaginative 
tenderness of my life ; perhaps he became so 
because I knew so well how to pity him. It 
matters little now, except as it may dispose 
you to think more leniently of his errors.” 

As her father held her in his arm, she put 


her other hand upon his other shoulder, aucl 
still looking fixedly into his face, went on. 

“ When I was irrevocably married, there rose 
up into rebellion against the tie, the old strife 
made fiercer by all those causes of disparity 
which arise out of our two individual natures, 
and which no general laws shall ever rule or 
state for me, father, until they shall be able 
to direct the anatomist where to strike his 
knife into the secrets of my soul.” 

“ Louisa!” he said, and said imploringly ; 
for he well remembered what had passed 
between them in their former interview. 

“ I do not reproach you, father, I make no 
complaint. I am here with another object.” 

“ What can I do, child ? Ask me what you 
will.” 

“ I am coming to it. Father, chance then 
threw into my way a new acquaintance ; a 
man such as I had had no experience of ; 
used to the world, light, polished, easy ; 
making no pretences, avowing the low esti- 
mate of everything, that I was half afraid to 
form in secret, conveying to me almost imme- 
diately, though I don’t know how or by what 
degrees that he understood me, and read my 
thoughts. I could not find that he was worse 
than I. There seemed to be a near affinity 
between us. I only wondered it should be 
worth his while, who cared for nothing else, 
to care so much for me.” 

“ For you?” 

Her father might instinctively have 
loosened his hold, but that he felt her 
strength departing from her, and saw a wild 
dilating fire in the eyes steadfastly regarding 
him. 

“ I say nothing of his plea for claiming my 
confidence. It matters very little how he 
gained it. Father, he did gain it. What you 
know of the story of my marriage, he soon 
knew, just as well.” 

Her father’s face was ashy white, and he 
held her in both his arms. 

“ I have done no worse. I have not dis- 
graced you. But if you ask me whether I 
have loved him, or do love him, I tell you 
plainly, father, that it may be so. I don’t 
know !” 

She took her hands suddenly from his 
shoulders and pressed them both upon her side ; 
while in her face, not like itself ; and in her 
figure, drawn up resolute to finish by a last 
effort what she had to say : the feelings long 
suppressed broke loose. 

“'This night, my husband being away, he 
has been with me, declaring himself my 
lover. This minute he expects me, for I could 
release myself of his presence by no other 
means. I do not know that I am sorry, I do 
not know that I am ashamed, I do not know 
that I am degraded in my own esteem. All 
that I know is, your philosophy and your 
teaching will not save me. Now, father you 
have brought me to this. Save me by some 
other means !” 

He tightened his hold in time to prevent 


80 


HARD TIMES. 


her sinking on the floor, but she cried out 
in a terrible voice, “ I shall die if you hold 
me ! Let me fall upon the ground !” And 
he laid her down there, and saw the pride of 
his heart and the triumph of his system lying, 
an insensible heap, at his feet. 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

Louisa awoke from a torpor, and her eyes 
languidly opened on her old bed at home, 
and her old raom. It seemed, at first, as if 
all that had happened since the days when 
these objects were familiar to her were the 
shadows of a dream ; but gradually as the 
objects became more real to her sight, the 
events became more real to her mind. 

She could scarcely move her head for pain 
and heaviness, her eyes were strained and 
sore, and she was very weak. A curious 
passive inattention had such possession of 
her that the presence of her little sister in 
the room did not attract her notice for some 
time. Even when their eyes had met, and 
her sister had approached the bed, Louisa lay 
for minutes looking at her in silence, and 
suffering her timidly to hold her passive hand, 
before she asked : 

“ When was I brought to this room ?” m 

“ Last night, Louisa.” 

“ Who brought me here ?” 

“ Sissy, I believe.” 

“ Why do you believe so?” 

‘‘Because I found her here this morniDg. 
She didn’t come to my bedside to wake me, 
as she always does, and I went to look for her. 
She was not in her own room either, and I 
went looking for her all over the house until 1 
found her here, taking care of you and cooling 
your head. Will you see father ? Sissy said 
I was to tell him when you woke.” 

“What a beaming face you have, Jane!” 
said Louisa, as her young sister — timidly still 
— bent down to kiss her. 

“ Have I ? I am very glad you think so. 

I am sure it must be Sissy’s doing.” 

The arm Louisa had begun to twine about 
her neck unbent itself. “ You can tell father, 
if you will.” Then staying her a moment, 
she said, “ It was you who made my room so 
cheerful, and gave it this look of welcome?” 

“ Oh no, Louisa, it was done before I came. 
It was ” 

Louisa turned upon her pillow, and heard 
no more. When her sister had withdrawn, 
she turned her head back again, and lay with 
her face towards the door until it opened and 
her father entered. 

He had a jaded anxious look upon him, 
and his hand, usually steady, trembled in hers. 
He sat down at the side of the bed, tenderly 
asking how she was, and dwelling on the 
necessity of her keeping very quiet after her 
agitation and exposure to the weather last 
night. He spoke in a subdued and troubled 
voice, very different from his usual dictatorial 
manner, and was often at a loss for words. 

“My dear Louisa. My poor daughter.” 


He was so much at a loss at that place, 
that he stopped altogether. He tried again. 

“ My unfortunate child.” The place was 
so difficult to get over, that he tried again. 

“It "would be hopeless for me, Louisa, to 
endeavour to tell you how overwhelmed I 
have been, and still am, by what broke upon 
me for the first time last night. The ground 
on which I stand has ceased to be solid under 
my feet. The only support on which I 
leaned, and the strength of which it seemed 
and still does seem impossible to question, 
has given way in an instant. I am stunned 
by these discoveries. I have no selfish 
meaning in what I say, but I find the shock 
of what broke upon me last night, to be very 
heavy indeed.” 

She could give him no comfort herein. She 
had suffered the wreck of her whole life 
upon the rock. 

“ I will not say, Louisa, that if you had by 
any happy chance undeceived me some time 
ago, it would have been better for us both ; 
better for your peace, and better for mine. 
For I am sensible that it has not been a part 
of my system to invite any confidence of that 
kind. I have proved my — my system to my- 
self and I have rigidly administered it, and I 
must bear the responsibility of its failures. 
I only entreat you to believe, my favorite 
child, that I have meant to do right.” 

He said it earnestly, and to do him justice 
he had. In gauging fathomless deeps with 
his little mean excise-rod, and in staggering 
over the universe with his rusty stiff-legged 
compasses, he had meant to do great things. 
Within the limits of his short tether he 
had tumbled about, annihilating the flowers 
of existence with greater singleness of pur- 
pose than many of the blatant personages 
whose company he kept. 

“I am well assured of what you say, 
father. I know I have been your favorite 
child ; I know you have intended to make me 
happy. I have never blamed you, and I 
never shall.” 

He took her outstretched hand, and re- 
tained it in his. 

“ My dear, I have remained all night at 
my table, pondering again and again on what 
has so painfully passed between us. When 
I consider your character ; when I consider 
that what has been known to me for hours 
has been concealed by you for years ; when I 
consider under what immediate pressure it 
has been forced from you at last ; I come to 
the conclusion that I cannot but mistrust 
myself.” 

He might have added more than all, when 
he saw the face now looking at him. He did 
add it in effect perhaps, as lie softly moved 
her scattered hair from her forehead with the 
palm of his hand. Such little actions, slight 
in another man, were very noticeable in him, 
and his daughter received them as if they had 
been words of contrition. 

“But,” said Mr. Gradgrind slowly, and 


HARD TIMES. 


81 


with hesitation, as well as with a wretched 
sense of helplessness, “ if I see reason to mis- 
trust myself for the past, Louisa, I should 
also mistrust myself for the present and the 
future. To speak unreservedly to you, I do. 
I am far from feeling convinced now, how- 
ever differently I might have felt only this 
time yesterday, that I am fit for the trust 
you repose in me ; that I know how to 
respond to the appeal you have come home 
to make to me ; that I have the right instinct 
— supposing it for the moment to be some 
quality of that nature — how to help you and 
to set you right my child.” 

She had turned upon her pillow, and lay 
with her face upon her arm, so that he could 
not see it. All her wildness and passion had 
subsided ; but, though softened, she was not 
in tears. Her father was changed in nothing 
so much as in the respect that he would have 
been glad to see her in tears. 

“ Some persons hold,” he pursued, still 
hesitating, “ that there is a wisdom of the 
Head and that there is a wisdom of the 
Heart. I have not supposed so, but, as I 
have said, I mistrust myself now. I have 
supposed the Head to be all-sufficient. It 
may not be all-sufficient ; how can I venture 
this morning to say that it is ? If that other 
kind of wisdom should be what I have 
neglected, and should be the instinct that is 
wanted, Louisa ” 

He suggested it very doubtfully, as if he 
were half unwilling to admit it even now. 
She made him no answer, lying before him 
on her bed, still half-dressed, much as he had 
seen her lying on the floor of his room last 
night. 

“ Louisa,” and his hand rested on her hair 
again, “ I have been absent from here, my 
dear, a good deal of late, and though your 
sister's training has been pursued according 
to — the system,” he appeared to come to that 
word with great reluctance always, “ it has 
necessarily been modified by daily associations 
begun, in her case, at a very early age. I ask 
you — ignorantly and humbly, my daughter — 
for the better, do you think ?” 

. “ Father,” she replied, without stirring, “ if 
any harmony has been awakened in her 
young breast that was mute in mine until it 
turned to discord, let her thank God for it, 
and go upon her happier way, taking it as 
her greatest blessing that she has avoided my 
way.” 

<• 0 my child, my child !” he said, in a 
forlorn manner, “I am an unhappy man to 
see you thus! What avails it to me that you 
do not reproach me, if I bitterly reproach 
myself!” He bent his head and spoke low 
to her. 11 Louisa, I have a misgiving that 
some change may have been slowly working 
about me by mere love and gratitude ; that 
what the Head had left undone, and could 
not do, the Heart may have been doing 
silently. Can it be so?” 

She made him no reply. 


“ I am not too proud to believe it, Louisa. 
How could I be arrogant, and you before me ! 
Can it be so? Is it so, my dear ?” 

He looked upon her, ouce more, lying cast 
away there, and without another word went 
out of the room. He had not been long 
gone when she heard a light tread near the 
door, and knew that some one stood beside 
her. * 

She did not raise her head. A dull anger 
that she should be seen in her distress, and 
that the involuntary look she had so resented 
should come to this fulfilment, smouldered 
within her like an unwholesome fire. All 
closely imprisoned forces rend and destroy. 
The air that would be healthful to the earth, 
the water that would enrich it, the heat that 
would ripen it, tear it when caged up. So 
in her bosom even now. The strongest 
qualities she possessed, long turned upon 
themselves, became a heap of obduracy, that 
rose against a friend. 

It was well that soft touch came upon her 
neck, and that she understood herself to be 
supposed to have fallen asleep. The sym- 
pathetic hand did not claim her resentment. 
Let it lie there, let it lie. 

So it lay there, warming into life a crowd 
of gentler thoughts, and she lay still. As 
she softened with the quiet and the conscious- 
ness of being so watched, some tears made 
their way into her eyes. The face stooped 
closer to her, and she knew that there were 
tears upon it too, and she the cause of them. 

As Louisa feigned to rouse herself, and sat 
up, Sissy retired, so that she stood placidly at 
the bed-side. 

“ I hope I have not disturbed you. I have 
come to ask if you will let me stay with 
you.” 

“ Why should you stay with me ? My 
sister will miss you. You are everything to 
her.” 

“Am I?” returned Sissy, smiling and 
shaking her head. “ I would be something 
to you, dear Miss Louisa, if I might.” 

“ What?” said Louisa, almost sternly. 

“ Whatever you want most, if I could be 
that. At all events I would like to try to be 
as near it as I can. And however far off that 
may be, I will never tire of trying. Will 
you let me?” 

“ My father sent you to ask me?” 

11 No indeed,” replied Sissy. “ He told me 
that I might come in now, but he sent me 
away from the room this morning — or at 
least — ” She hesitated and stopped. 

“ At least, what ?” said Louisa, with her 
searching eyes upon her. 

“ I thought it best myself that I should be 
sent away, for I felt very uncertain whether 
you would like to find me here.” 

‘‘ Have I always hated you so much ?” 

• i I hope not, for I have always been ruly 
attached to you, and deeply wishful that you 
should know it. But you changed to me a 
little, shortly before you left home. Not that 


S2 


HARD TIMES. 


I wondered at it. You knew so much, and I 
knew so little, and it was so natural in many 
ways, going as you were among other friends, 
that I had nothing to complain of, and was 
not at all hurt.” 

Her color rose as she said it modestly and 
hurriedly. Louisa understood the loving pre- 
tence, and her heart smote her. 

“ May I try ?” said Sissy, emboldened to 
raise her hand to the neck that was insensibly 
drooping towards her. 

Louisa, taking down the hand that would 
have embraced her in another moment, held it 
tight in one of hers, and answered : 

“ First, Sissy, you should know what I am. 
I am so proud and so hardened, so confused 
and troubled, so resentful and unjust to every 
one and to myself, that everything is stormy, 
dark, and wicked to me. Does not that repel 
you?” 

“ No !” 

“I am so unhappy, and all that should 
have me otherwise is so laid waste, that if I 
had been bereft of sense to this hour, and in- 
stead of being as learned as you think me, 
had to begin to acquire the simplest truths, I 
could not want a guide to peace, contentment, 
honor, all the good of which I am quite de- 
void, more abjectly than I do. Does not that 
repel you?” 

“No!” 

In the innocence of her brave affection, and 
the trimming up of her old devoted spirit, the 
once deserted girl shone like a beautiful light 
upon the darkness of the other. 

Louisa raised the hand that it might clasp 
her neck, and join its fellow there. She fell 
upon her knees, and clinging to this stroller’s 
child looked up at her almost with venera- 
tion. 

“Forgive me, pity me, help me! Have 
compassion on my great need, and let me lay 
this head of mine upon a loving heart.” 

“ 0 lay it here !” cried Sissy. “ Lay it 
here, my dear.” 

Louisa's tears fell like the blessed rain 
after a long drought. The sullen glare was 
over, and in every drop there was a germ of 
hope and promise for the dried-up ground. 

CHAPTER XXX. 

Mr. James Harthouse passed a whole night 
and a day in a state of so much hurry that 
the World, with its best glass in its eye, 
would have scarcely recognised him during 
that insane interval, as the brother Jem of 
the honourable and jocular member. He 
was positively agitated. He several times 
spoke with an emphasis, similar to the vulgar 
manner. He went in and went out in a most 
unaccountable way, like a man with an ob- 
ject. He rode like a highwayman. In a 
word, he was so horribly bored by real exist- 
ing circumstances, that he forgot to go in for 
boredom in the manner prescribed by the au- 
thorities. 

After putting his horse at Coketown through 


the storm, as if it were a leap, he waited up 
all night ; from time to time ringing his bell 
with the greatest fury, charging the porter 
who kept watch with delinquency in with- 
holding letters or messages that could not fail 
to have been entrusted to him, and demand- 
ing restitution on the spot. The dawn com- 
ing, the morning coming, and the day coming, 
and neither message nor letter coming with 
either, he went down to the country house. 
There, the report -was, Mr. Bounderby away, 
and Mrs. Bounderby in town. Left for town 
suddenly last evening. Not even known to be 
gone until receipt of message, importing that 
her return was not to be expected for the pre- 
sent. 

In these circumstances he had nothing for 
it but to follow her to town. He went to the 
house in town. Mrs. Bounderby not there ; 
not even been heard of. He looked in at the 
Bank. Mr. Bounderby away, and Mrs. Sparsit 
away. Mrs. Sparsit away ? Who could have 
been reduced to sudden extremity for the 
company of that griffin ! 

“Well ! I don’t know,” said Tom, who had 
his own reasons for being uneasy about it. 
“ She was off somewhere at daybreak this 
morning. She’s always full of mystery ; I 
hate her. So I do that white chap ; he’s 
always got his blinking eye upon a fellow.” 

“ Where were you last night, Tom ?” 

“Where was I last night!” said Tom. 
“ Come ! I like that. I was waiting for you, 
Mr. Harthouse, till it came down as / never 
saw it come down before. Where was I too ! 
Where were you, you mean.” 

“ I was prevented from coming — detained.” 

“ Detained !” said Tom. “ Two of us were 
detained. I was detained looking for you till 
I lost every train but the mail. It would 
have been a pleasant job to go down by that 
on such a night, and have to walk home 
through a pond. I was obliged to sleep in 
town after all.” 

“ Where ?” 

“Where? Why, in your bed at Boun- 
derby’s.” 

“Did you see your sister ?” 

“ How the deuce,” returned Tom, staring, 
“ could I see my sister when she was fifteen 
miles off?” 

Cursing these quick retorts of the young 
gentlemau to whom he was so true a friend, 
Mr. Harthouse disembarrassed himself of 
that interview with the smallest conceivable 
amount of ceremony, and debated for the 
hundredth time what all this could mean? 
He made only one thing clear. It was, that 
whether she was in town or out of town, 
whether he had been premature with her who 
was so hard to comprehend, or she had lost 
courage, or they w r ere discovered, or some 
mischance or mistake at present incompre- 
hensible had occurred — he must remain to con- 
front his fortune, whatever it was. The hotel 
where he was knowm to live when condemned 
to that region of blackness, was the slake to 


HARD TIMES. 


83 


which he was tied. As to all the rest — What 
will be, will be. 

“ So, whether I am waiting for a hostile 
message, or an assignation, or a penitent re- 
monstrance, or an impromptu wrestle with 
my friend Bounderby in the Lancashire man- 
ner — which would seem as likely as anything 
else in the present state of affairs — I’ll dine,” 
said Mr. James Harthouse. “Bounderby 
has the advantage in point of weight ; and if 
anything of a British nature is to come off 
between us, it may be as well to be in 
training.” 

Therefore he rang the bell, and tossing 
himself negligently on a sofa, ordered “ Some 
dinner at six, with a beefsteak in it,” and got 
through the intervening time as well as he 
could. That was not particularly well, for 
he remained in the greatest perplexity, and 
as the hours went on, and no kind of expla- 
nation ottered itself, his perplexity augmented 
at compound interest. 

However, he took affairs as coolly as it 
•was in human nature to do, and entertained 
himself with the facetious idea of the training 
more than once. “ It wouldn’t be bad,” he 
yawued at one time, “ to give the waiter five 
shillings and throw him.” At another time it 
occurred to him, “ Or a fellow of about thirteen 
or fourteen stone might be hired by the 
hour.” But these jests did not tell materially 
on the afternoon or his suspense ; and, 
sooth to say, they both lagged fearfully. 

It was impossible, even before dinner, to 
avoid often walking about in the patterns of 
the carpet, looking out of the window, listening 
at the door for footsteps, and occasionally 
becoming rather hot when they approached 
that room. But after dinner, when the day 
turned to twilight, and the twilight turned to 
night, and still no communication was made 
to him, it began to be, as he expressed it, 
“ uncommonly like the Holy Office and slow 
torture.” However, still true to his conviction 
that coolness was the genuine high-breeding 
(the only conviction he had), he seized this 
crisis as the opportunity for ordering candles 
and a newspaper. 

He had been trying in vain, for half an 
hour, to read this newspaper, when the waiter 
appeared and said, at once mysteriously and 
apologetically : 

“ Beg your pardon sir. You’re wanted 
sir, if you please.” 

* A general recollection that this was the 
sort of thing the Police said to the swell mob, 
caused Mr. Harthouse to ask the waiter in 
return, with bristling indignation, what the 
Devil he meant by “ wanted ?”^ 

— “ Beg your pardon, sir, Young lady out- 
side, sir, wished to see you.” 

“ Outside ? Where ?” 

“ Outside this door sir.” 

Giving the waiter to the personage before- 
mentioned, as a blockhead duly qualified lor 
that consignment, Mr. Harthouse hurried 
into the gallery. A young woman whom lie 


had never seen stood there. Plainly dressed, 
very quiet, very pretty. As he conducted 
her into the room and placed a chair for her, 
he observed by the light of the candles, that 
she was even prettier than he had at first 
believed. Her face was innocent and youthful, 
and its expression remarkably pleasant. She 
was not afraid of him, or in any way discon- 
certed ; she seemed to have her mind entirely 
pre-occupied with the occasion of her visit, 
and to have substituted that consideration 
for herself. 

“I speak to Mr. Harthouse?” she said, 
when they were alone. 

“ To Mr. Harthouse.” He added in his 
mind — “ And you speak to him with the most 
confiding eyes I ever saw ; and the most 
earnest voice (though so quiet) I ever heard.” 

“If I do not understand — and I do not, 
sir” — said Sissy, “ what your honor as a 
gentleman binds you to, in other matters:” 
the blood really rose in his face as she began 
in these words ; “ I am sure I may rely upon 
it to keep my visit secret, and to keep secret 
what I am going to say. I will rely upon 
it, if you will tell me I may so far trust 
you.” 

“ You may, I assure you.” 

“ I am young, as you see ; I am alone, as 
you see. In coming to you, sir, I have no 
advice or encouragement beyond my own 
hope.” 

He thought, “But that is very strong,” as 
he followed the momentary upward glance of 
her eyes. He thought besides, “ This is a 
very odd beginning. I don’t see where we 
are going.” 

“Perhaps,” said Sissy, “you have already 
guessed whom I left just now?” 

“I have been in the greatest concern and 
uneasiness during the last four-and-twenty 
hours (which have appeared as many years),” 
he returned, “on a lady’s account. The 
hopes I have been encouraged to form that 
you come from that lady do not deceive me, 
I trust.” 

“ I left her within an hour.” 

“So lately! At ?” 

“ At her father’s.” 

Mr. Harthouse’s face lengthened in spite of 
his coolness, and his perplexity increased. 
“ Then I certainly,” he thought, “ do not see 
where we are going.” 

“ She hurried there last night. She arrived 
there in great agitation, and was insensible 
all through the night. I live at her father’s 
and was with her. You may be sure, sir. 
you will never see her again as long as yon 
live.” 

Mr. Harthouse drew a long breath, and, if 
ever man found himself in the position of not 
knowing what to say, made the discovery 
beyond all question that he, James Hart- 
house, was so circumstanced. The child-like 
ingenuousness with which his visitor ^poke 
her modest fearlessness, her truth uluess 
which put all artifice askle, her entire foi 


84 


HARD TIMES. 


getfulness of herself in the earnest quiet 
holding to the object with which she had 
come ; all this, together with her reliance on 
his easily-given promise, which in itself 
shamed him — presented something in which 
he was so inexperienced, and against which 
he knew his usual weapons would fall so 
powerless ; that not a word could he rally 
to his relief. 

At last he said : 

“ So startling an announcement, so con- 
fidently made, and by such lips, is really 
disconcerting in the last degree. May I be 
permitted to inquire if you are charged to 
convey that information to me in those hope- 
less words by the lady of whom we speak ?” 

“ I have no charge from her.” 

“ The drowning man catches at the straw. 
With no disrespect for your judgment, and 
with no doubt of your sincerity, excuse my 
saying that I cling to the belief that there 
is yet hope that I am not condemned to per- 
petual exile from that lady’s presence.” 

“ There is not the least hope. The first 
object of my coming here, sir, is to assure 
you that you must believe that there is no 
more hope of your ever speaking with her 
again than there would be if she had died 
when she came home last night.” 

“ Must believe ? But if I can’t — or if I 
should, by infirmity of nature, be obstinate — 
and won’t — ” 

“ It is still true. There is no hope.” 

James Harthouse looked at her with an 
incredulous smile upon his lips, but her mind 
looked over and beyond him, and the smile 
was quite thrown away. * 

He bit his lip, and took a little time for 
consideration. 

“ If it should unhappily appear,” he said, 
“ after due pains and duty on my part, that I 
am brought to a position so desolate as this 
banishment, I shall not become the lady’s 
persecutor. But you said you had no com- 
mission from her.” 

“I have only the commission of my love 
for her, and her love for me. I have no other 
trust than that I have been with her since 
she fled home, and that she has given me 
her confidence. I have no further trust than 
that I know something of her character and 
her marriage. 0 Mr. Harthouse, I think 
you had that trust too.” 

He was touched in the cavity where his 
heart should have been, in that nest of addled 
eggs, where the birds of heaven would have 
lived if they had not been whistled away by 
the simple fervor of this reproach. 

“ I am not a moral sort of fellow,” he said, 
“ and I never make any pretensions to the 
character of a moral sort of fellow. I am as 
immoral as need be, I dare say. At the same 
time, in bringing any distress upon the lady 
who is the subject of the present conversation, 
or in unfortunately compromising her in any 
way ; or in committing myself by any ex- 
pression of sentiments towards her, not per- 


fectly reconcilable with — the domestic hearth ; 
or in taking any advantage of her father’s 
being a machine, or of her brother's being a 
whelp, or of her husband’s being a bear ; I 
beg to be allowed to assure you that I 
have had no particularly evil intentions, but 
have glided on from one step to another with 
a smoothness so entirely diabolical that I had 
not the slightest idea the catalogue was half 
so long until I began to turn it over. When 
I find,” said Mr. James Harthouse, in conclu- 
sion, “ that it is in several volumes.” 

Though he said all this in his frivolous 
way, the way seemed, for that once, a conscious 
polishing of but an ugly surface. He was 
silent for a moment, and then proceeded with 
a more courtly air, though with traces of vex- 
ation and disappointment that would not be 
polished out : 

“ After what has been just now represented 
to me in a manner I find it impossible to 
doubt — I really know of hardly any other 
source from which I could have accepted it 
so readily — I feel bound to say to you in 
whom the confidence you have mentioned, 
has been reposed, that I cannot refuse to con- 
template the possibility (however unexpected) 
of my seeing the lady no more. I am solely 
to blame for the thing having come to this — 
and — and I cannot say,” he added, rather 
hard up for a general peroration, “ that I 
have any sanguiue expectations of ever be- 
coming a moral sort of fellow, or that I have 
any belief in any moral sort of fellow, any- 
where.” 

Sissy’s face sufficiently showed that her 
appeal to him was not finished. 

“ You spoke,” he resumed, as she raised her 
eyes to him again, “ of your first object. I 
may assume that there is a second to be 
mentioned ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“Will you oblige me by confiding it?” 

“Mr. Harthouse,” returned Sissy, with a 
blending of gentleness and steadiness that 
quite defeated him, and with a perfect con- 
fidence in his being bound to do what she 
required, that held him at a singular disad- 
vantage, “ the only reparation that remains 
with you, is to leave here immediately, and 
finally. I am quite sure that you can miti- 
gate in no other way the wrong and harm you 
have done. I am quite sure that it is the 
only compensation you have left it in your 
power to make. I do not say that it is much 
or that it is enough, but it is something, and it 
is necessary. Therefore, though without any 
other authority than I have given you, and even 
without the knowledge of any other person 
than yourself and myself, 1 ask ypu to 
depart from this place to-night, under an 
obligation never to return to it.” 

If she had asserted any influence over him 
beyond her simple faith in the truth and 
right of what she said ; if she had concealed 
the least doubt or irresolution, or had har- 
boured for the best purpose any reserve or 


SARD TIMES. 


85 


pretence ; if she had shown or felt the light- 
est trace ot any sensitiveness to his ridicule 
or his astonishment, or any remonstrance he 
might offer, he would have carried it against 
her at this point. But he could as easily 
have changed a clear sky by looking at it in 
surprise as affect her. 

“ But do you know,” he asked, quite at a 
loss, “the extent of what you ask? You 
probably are not aware that I am here on a 
public kind of business, preposterous enough 
in itself, but which I have gone in for, and 
sworn by, and am supposed to be devoted to 
in quite a desperate manner? You probably 
are not aware of that, but I assure you it’s 
the fact.” 

It had no effect on Sissy, fact or no fact. 

“ Besides which,” said Mr. Harthouse, 
taking a turn or two across the room, and 
biting his nails dubiously, “ it’s so alarmingly 
absurd. It would make a man so ridiculous, 
after going in for these fellows, to back out 
in such an unaccountable way.” 

Z am quite sure,” repeated Sissy, “ that 
it is the only reparation in your power, sir. 
I am quite sure; or I would not have come 
here.” 

He glanced at her face, and walked about 
again. “ Upon my soul, I don’t know what to 
say. So immensely absurd !” 

It fell to his lot, now, to stipulate for secresy. 
“If I were to do such a very ridiculous 
thing,” he said, stopping again presently, and 
leaning against the chimney-piece, “ it could 
only be in the most inviolable confidence.” 

“ I will trust to you, sir,” returned Sissy, 
“ and you will trust to me.” 

His leaning against the chimney-piece re- 
minded him of the night with the whelp. It 
was the self-same chimney-piece, and somehow 
he felt as if he were the whelp to-night. He 
could make no way at all. 

“I suppose a man never was placed in a 
more ridiculous position,” he said, after look- 
ing down, and looking up, and laughing, and 
frowning, and walking off, and walking back 
again. “ But I see no way out of it. What 
will be, will be. This will be, I suppose. I 
must take off myself, I imagine — in short, I 
engage to do it.” 

Sissy rose. She was not surprised by the 
result, but she was happy in it, and her face 
beamed brightly. 

“ You will permit me to say,” continued 
Mr. James Harthouse, “ that I doubt if any 
other ambassador, or ambassadress, could 
have addressed me at the same advantage. 
I must not only regard myself as being in a 
very ridiculous position, but as being van- 
quished at all points. Will fmu allow me 
the privilege of remembering my enemy’s 
name ?” 

“ My name?” said the ambassadress, 
blushing. 

“ The only name I could possibly care to 
know, to-nigbt.” 

“Sissy Jupe.” 


“ Pardon my curiosity at parting. Related 
to the family ?” 

“ I am only a poor girl,” returned Sissy. 
“I was separated from my father — he was 
only a stroller — and taken pity on by Mr. 
Gradgrind. I have lived in the house ever 
since.” 

She was gone. 

“It wanted this to complete the defeat,” 
said Mr. James Harthouse, sinking, with a 
resigned air, on the sofa, after standing trans- 
fixed a little while, “ and now it may be con- 
sidered perfectly accomplished. Only a poor 
girl — only a stroller — only James Harthouse 
floored — only J ames Harthouse a Great Pyra- 
mid of failure.” 

The Great Pyramid put it into his head to 
go up the Nile. He took a pen upon the 
instant, and wrote the following note (in 
appropriate hieroglyphics) to his brother : 

Dear Jack, — All up at Coketown. Bored 
out of the place, and going in for camels. 
Affectionately, Jem. 

He rang the bell. 

“ Send my fellow here.” 

“ Gone to bed sir.” 

“ Tell him to get up and pack up.” 

He wrote two more notes. One, to Mr. 
Bounderby, announcing his retirement from 
that part of the country, and showing where 
he would be found for the next fortnight. 
The other, similar in effect to Mr. Gradgrind. 

Almost as soon as the ink was dry upon 
their superscriptions, he had left the tall chim- 
neys of Coketown behind, and was in a railway 
carriage, tearing and glaring over the dark 
landscape. 

The moral sort of fellows might suppose 
that Mr. James Harthouse derived some 
Npomfortable reflections thereafter from this 
prompt retreat, as one of his few actions that 
made any amends for anything, and as a 
token to himself that he had escaped the 
climax of a very bad business. But it was 
not so, at all. A secret sense of having failed 
and made himself ridiculous ; a dread of what 
other fellows who went in for similar sorts of 
things, would say at his expense if they knew 
it, so oppressed him, that what was about the 
best passage in his life was the one of all 
others he would not have owned to, and 
that often made him quite ashamed of 
himself. 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

The indefatigable Mr. Sparsit, with a vio- 
lent cold upon her, her voice reduced to a 
whisper, and her stately frame so racked by 
continual sneezes that it seemed in danger of 
dismemberment, gave chase to her patron 
until she found him in the metropolis ; and 
there sweeping in upon him at his hotel in 
St. James's Street, exploded the com- 
bustibles with which she was charged, and 
blew up. Having executed her mission with 
infinite relish, this high-minded woman then 
fainted away on Mr. Bounderby 's coat-collar. 


8(5 


HARD TIMES. 


Mr. Bounderby’s first procedure was to 
shake Mrs. Sparsit off, and leave her to pro- 
gress as she might through various stages 
ol suffering on the floor. He next had 
recourse to the administration of potent 
restoratives, such as screwing the patient’s 
thumbs, smiting her hands, abundantly 
watering her face, and inserting salt in her 
mouth. When these attentions had recovered 
her (which they speedily did), he hustled her 
into a fast train without offering any 
other refreshment, and carried her back to 
Coketown more dead than alive. 

Regarded as a classical ruin, Mrs. Sparsit 
was an interesting spectacle on her arrival 
at her journey’s end ; but considered in any 
other light, the amount of damage she had by 
that time sustained was excessive, and im- 
paired her claims to admiration. Utterly 
heedless of the wear and tear of her clothes 
and constitution, and adamant to her pathetic 
sneezes, Mr. Bounderby immediately crammed 
her into a coach, and bore her off to Stone 
] iOdge. 

“ Now, Tom Gradgrind,” said Bounderby, 
bursting into his father-in-law’s room late at 
night ; “ here’s a lady here — Mrs. Sparsit — 
you know Mrs. Sparsit — who has something 
to make known to you that will strike you 
dumb.” 

“ You have missed my letter !” exclaimed 
Mr. Gradgrind, surprised by the apparition. 

“Missed your letter, sir!” bawled Bound- 
erby. The present time is no time for 
letters. No man shall talk to Josiah Bound- 
erby of Coketown about letters with his mind 
in the state it’s in now.” 

“ Bounderby,” said Mr. Gradgrind, in a 
tone of temperate remonstrance. “ I speak 
of a very special letter I have written to you, 
in reference to Louisa.” 

“ Tom Gradgrind,” replied Bounderby, 
knocking the flat of his hand several times 
with great vehemence on the table, “ I speak 
of a very special messenger that has come to 
me in reference to Louisa. Mrs. Sparsit 
ma’am, stand forward.” 

That unfortunate lady hereupon essaying 
to offer testimony without any voice, and 
with painful gestures expressive of an inflamed 
throat, became so aggravating and underwent 
so many facial contortions, that Mr. Bound- 
erby, unable to bear it, seized her by the arm 
and shook her. 

“ If you can’t get it out ma’am,” said 
Bounderby, “ leave me to get it out. This is 
not a time for a lady, however highly con- 
nected, to be totally inaudible and seemingly 
swallowing marbles. Tom Gradgrind, Mrs. 
Sparsit latterly found herself by accident in 
a situation to overhear a conversation out 
of doors between your daughter and 
your precious gentleman-friend, Mr. James 
Harthouse.” 

“Indeed?” said Mr. Gradgrind. 

“ Ah ! Indeed !” cried Bounderby. “ And 
in that conversation ” 


“'It is not necessary to repeat its tenor, 
Bounderby. I know what passed.” 

“ You do ? Perhaps,” said Bounderby, 
staring with all his might at his so quiet and 
assuasive father-in-law, “you know where 
your daughter is at the present time !” 

“ Undoubtedly. She is here.” 

“ Here?” 

“ My dear Bounderby, let me beg you to 
restrain these loud outbreaks, on all accounts. 
Louisa is here. The moment she could 
detach herself from that interview with the 
person of whom you speak, and whom I 
deeply regret to have been the means of in- 
troducing to you, Louisa hurried here, for 
protection. I myself had not been at home 
many hours, when I received her — here in 
this room. She hurried by the train to town, 
she ran from town to this house through a 
raging storm, and presented herself before 
me in a state of distraction. Of course, she 
has remained here ever since. Let me en- 
treat you, for your own sake and for hers too, 
to be more quiet.” 

Mr. Bounderby silently gazed about him 
for some moments in every direction except 
Mrs. Sparsit’s direction, and then abruptly 
turning upon the niece of Lady Scadgers, 
said to that wretched woman : 

“ Now, ma’am ! We shall be happy to hear 
any little apology you may think proper to 
otter, for going about the country at express 
pace, with no other luggage than a Cock and 
a Bull, ma’am !” 

“ Sir,” whispered Mrs. Sparsit, “ my nerves 
are at present too much shaken, and my 
health is at present too much impaired, in 
your service, to admit of my doing more than 
taking refuge in tears.” 

Which she did. 

“Well, ma’am,” said Bounderby, “with- 
out making any observation to you that may 
not be made with propriety to a woman of 
good family, what I have got to add to that, 
is, that there’s something else in which it 
appears to me you may take refuge, namely, 
a coach. And the coach in which we came 
here, being at the door, you’ll allow me to 
haSd you down to it and pack you home to 
the Bank : where the best course for you to 
pursue, will be to put your feet into the 
hottest water you can bear, and take a glass 
of scalding rum and butter after you get into 
bed.” With these words Mr. Bounderby ex- 
tended his right hand to the weeping "lady 
and escorted her to the conveyance in ques- 
tion, shedding many plaintive sneezes by the 
way. He soon returned alone. 

“Now, as you showed me in your face, 
Tom Gradgrind, that you wanted to speak to 
me,” he resumed, “ here I am. But I am not 
in a very agreeable state, I tell you plainly, 
not relishing this business even as it is, and 
not considering that I am at any time as 
dutifully and submissively treated by your 
daughter as Josiah Bounderby of Coketown 
ought to be treated by his wife. You have 


HARD TIMES. 


87 


your opinion, I dare say ; and I have mine, I 
know. If you mean to say anything to me 
to-night, that goes against this candid remark, 
you had better leave it alone.” 

Mr. Gradgrind, it will be observed, being 
much softened, Mr. Bounderby took particular 
pains to harden himself at all points. It was 
his amiable nature. 

“ My dear Bounderby,” Mr. Gradgrind 
began in reply. 

“ Now, you’ll excuse me,” said Bounderby, 
“ but I don’t want to be too dear. That to 
start with. When I begin to be dear to a 
man, I generally find that his intention is to 
come over me. I am not speaking to you 
politely ; but, as you are aware, I am not 
polite. I£ you like politeness, you know 
where to get it. You have your gentleman 
friends you know, and they’ll serve you with 
as much of the article as you want. I don’t 
keep it myself.” 

“ Bounderby,” urged Mr. Gradgrind, “ we 
are all liable to mistakes ” 

“ I thought you couldn’t make ’em,” 
interrupted Bounderby. 

“ Perhaps I thought so. But, I say we are 
all liable to mistakes ; and I should feel sen- 
sible of your delicacy, and really grateful for 
it, if you would spare me these references to 
Harthouse. I shall not associate him in our 
conversation with your intimacy and en- 
couragement ; pray do not persist in connect- 
ing him with mine.” 

“ I never mentioned his name !” said 
Bounderby. 

“Well, well!” returned Mr. Gradgrind, 
with a patient, even a submissive, air. And 
he sat for a little while pondering. “ Bound- 
erby, I see reason to doubt whether we have 
ever quite understood Louisa.” 

“ Who do you mean by We ?” 

“ Let me say, I, then,” he returned, in answer 
to the coarsely blurted question ; “ I doubt 
whether I have understood Louisa. I doubt 
whether I have been quite right in the manner 
of her education.” 

“ There you hit it,” returned Bounderby. 
“There I agree with you. You have found 
it out at last, have you ? Education ! I’ll 
tell you what education is — To be tumbled 
out of doors, neck and crop, and put upon the 
shortest allowance of everything except blows. 
That’s what I call education.” 

“I think your good sense will perceive,” 
Mr. Gradgrind remonstrated in all humility, 
“ that whatever the merits of such a system 
may be, It would be difficult of general appli- 
cation to girls.” 

“ I don’t see it at all, sir,” returned the obsti- 
nate Bounderby. 

« Well,” sighed Mr. Gradgrind, “ we will not 
enter into the question. I assure you I have 
no desire to be controversial. I seek to repair 
what is am its, if I possibly can, and I hope 
you will assist me in a good spirit, Bounderby, 
for 1 have been very much distressed.” 

“ I don’t understand you, yet,” said Boun- 


derby, with determined obstinacy, “ and 
therefore I won’t make any promises.” 

“In the course of a few hours, my dear 
Bounderby,” Mr. Gradgrind proceeded, in the 
same depressed and propitiatory manner, “ I 
appear to myself to have become better in- 
formed as to Louisa’s character than in all 
previous years. The enlightenment has been 
painfully forced upon me, and the discovery is 
not mine. I think there are — Bounderby you 
will be surprised to hear me say this — I think 
there are imaginative qualities in Louisa, 
which — which have been hardly dealt with, 
and — and a little perverted. And — and I 
would suggest to you, that — that if you would 
kindly meet me in a timely endeavor to leave 
her to her better nature for a while — and to 
encourage it to develop itself by tenderness 
and consideration — it — it would be the better 
for the happiness of all of us. Louisa,” said 
Mr. Gradgrind, shading his face with his 
hand, “ has always been my favorite child.” 

The blustrous Bounderby crimsoned and 
swelled to such an extent on hearing these 
words, that he seemed to be, and probably was 
on the brink of a fit. With his very ears a 
bright purple shot with crimson, he put up 
his indignation, however, and said : 

“ You’d like to keep her here for a time?” 

“ I — I had intended to recommend, my dear 
Bounderby, that you should allow Louisa to 
remain here on a visit, and be attended by 
Sissy (I mean of course Cecilia Jupe), who 
understands her, and in whom she trusts.” 

“ I gather from all this, Tom Gradgrind,” 
said Bounderby, standing up with his hands 
in his pockets, “ that you are of opinion 
there’s what people call some incompatibility 
between Loo Bounderby and myself.” 

“I fear there is at present a general incom- 
patibility between Louisa, and — aud — and al- 
most all the relations in which I have placed 
her,” was her father’s sorrowful reply. 

“ Now look you here, Tom Gradgrind,” 
said Bounderby the flushed, confronting him 
with his legs wide apart, his hands deeper in his 
pockets, his hair like a hay field wherein his 
windy anger was boisterous. “ You have said 
your say ; I am going to say mine. I am' 
a Coketown man. I am Jo3iah Bounderby of 
Coketown. I know the bricks of this town, and 
I know the works of this town, and I know the 
chimneys of this town, and I know the smoke 
of this town, and I know the Hands of this 
town. I know ’em all pretty well. They’re 
real. When a man tells me anything about 
imaginative qualities, I always tell that man, 
whoever he is, that I know what he means. 
He means turtle-soup and venison, with a 
gold spoon, and that he wants to be set up 
with a coach and six. That’s what your 
daughter wants. Since you are of opinion 
that she ought to have what she wants, I 
recommend you to provide it for her. Be- 
cause, Tom Gradgrind, she will never have it 
from me.” 

“ Bounderby,” said Mr. Gradgrind. “ I 


88 


HARD TIMES. 


hoped, after my entreaty, you would have 
taken a different tone.” 

“ Just wait a bit,” retorted Bounderby, 
“ you have said your say, I believe. I heard 
you out ; hear me out if you please. Don’t 
make yourself a spectacle of unfairness as 
well asdnconsistency, because, although I am 
sorry to see Tom Gradgrind reduced to his 
present position, I should be doubly sorry to 
see him brought so low as that. Now, there’s 
an incompatibility of some sort or another, I 
am given to understand by you, between your 
daughter and me. I’ll give you to understand, 
in reply to that, that there unquestionably is 
an incompatibility of the first magnitude to be 
summed up in this — that your daughter don’t 
properly know her husband’s merits, and is 
not impressed with such a sense as would 
become her, by George ! of the honour of his 
alliance. That’s plain speaking, I hope.” 

“ Bounderby,” urged Mr. Gradgrind, “ this 
is unreasonable.” 

“Is it?” said Bounderby. “I am glad to 
hear you say so. Because when Tom Grad- 
grind, with his new lights, tells me that what 
I say is unreasonable, I am convinced at once 
that it must be devilish sensible. With 
your permission I am going on. You know 
my origin, and you know that for a good 
many years of my life I didn’t want a shoe- 
ing-horn in consequence of not having a shoe. 
Yet you may believe or not, as you think 
proper, that there are ladies — born ladies — be- 
longing to families — families ! — who next to 
worship the ground I walk on.” 

He discharged this, like a Rocket, at his 
father-in-law’s head. 

“ Whereas your daughter,” proceeded 
Bounderby, “ Is far from being a born lady. 
That you know, yourself. Not that I care a 
pinch of candle-snutf about such things, for 
you are very well aware I don’t ; but that 
such is the fact, and you, Tom Gradgrind, 
can’t change it. Why do I say this ?” 

“ Not, I fear,” observed Mr. Gradgrind, in 
a low voice, “ to spare me.” 

“ Hear me out,” said Bounderby, “ and 
refrain from cutting in till your turn comes 
round. I say this, because highly connected 
females have been astonished to see the way 
in which your daughter has conducted herself, 
and to witness her insensibility. They have 
wondered how I have suffered it. And I won- 
der myself now, and I won’t suffer it.” 

“ Bounderby,” returned Mr. Gradgrind, 
rising, “ the less we say to-night the better, I 
think.” 

“ On the contrary, Tom Gradgrind, the 
more we say to-night, the better, I think. 
That is,” the consideration checked him, “ till 
I have said all I mean to say, and then I don’t 
care how soon we stop. I come to a question 
that may shorten the business. What do you 
mean by the proposal you made just now ?” 

“ What do I mean, Bounderby ?” 

“ By your visiting proposition,” said Boun- 
derby, with an inflexible jerk of the hay field. 


“I mean that I hope you may be induced 
to arrange, in a friendly manner, for allowing 
Louisa a period of repose and reflection here, 
which may tend to a gradual alteration for 
the better in many respects.” 

“ To a softening down of your ideas of the 
incompatibility,” said Bounderby. 

“ If you put it in those terms.” 

“ What made you think of this ?” said 
Bounderby. 

“ I have already said, I fear Louisa has not 
been understood. Is it asking too much, 
Bounderby, that you, so far her elder, should 
aid in trying to set her right ? You have 
accepted a great charge of her ; you took 
her for better for worse.” 

Mr. Bounderby may have been annoyed by 
the repetition of his own words to Stephen 
Blackpool, but he cut the quotation short with 
an angry start. 

“ Come !” he said, “ I don’t want to be told 
about that. I know what I took her for, as 
well as you do. Never you mind what I took 
her for 5 that’s my look-out.” 

“ I was merely going on to remark, Boun- 
derby, that we may all be more or less in the 
wrong, not even excepting you ; and that 
some yielding consideration on your part, re- 
membering the trust you have accepted, may 
not only be an act of true kindness, but per- 
haps a debt incurred towards Louisa.” 

“ I think differently,” blustered Bounderby, 
“ I am going to finish this business according 
to my own opinions. I don’t want to make a 
quarrel of it with you, Tom Gradgrind. To 
tell you the truth, I don’t think it would be 
worthy of my reputation to quarrel on such 
a poor subject. Your gentleman friend, he 
may take himself off, wherever he likes best. 
If he falls in my way, I shall tell him my 
mind ; if he don’t fall in my way. I shan’t, for 
it won’t be worth my while to do it. As to 
your daughter, whom I made Loo Bounderby, 
and might have done better by leaving Loo 
Grandgrind, if she don’t come home to mor- 
row, by twelve o’clock at noon, I shall under- 
stand that she prefers to stay away, and I 
shall send her wearing apparel and so forth 
over here, and you’ll take charge of her for 
the future. What I shall say to people in 
general, of the incompatibility that led to my 
so laying down the law, will be this. I am 
Josiah Bounderby, and I had my bringing-up. 
She’s the daughter of Tom Gradgrind, and 
she had her bringing-up ; and the two horses 
wouldn’t pull together! I am pretty well 
known to be rather an uncommon man. I be- 
lieve 5' and most people will understand fast 
enough that it must be a woman rather out of 
the common also, who, in the long run, would 
come up to my mark.” 

“ Let me seriously entreat you to re-consi- 
der this, Bounderby,” urged Mr. Gradgrind, 
“ before you commit yourself to a decision.” 

“ I always come to a decision,” said Boun- 
derby, tossing his hat on, “ and whatever I do, 
I do "at once. I should be surprised at Tom 


HARD TIMES. 


89 


Grad grind’s addressing such a remark to Josiah 
Bounderby of Coketown, knowing what he 
knows of him, if I could be surprised by any- 
thing Tom Gradgrind did, after his making 
himself a party to sentimental humbug. I 
have given you my decision and I have got no 
more to say. Good night!” 

So, Mr. Bounderby went home to his town- 
house to bed. At live minutes past twelve o’- 
clock next day, he directed Mrs. Bounderby’s 
property to be carefully packed up and sent to 
Tom Gradgrind’s advertised Nickit’s retreat 
for sale by private contract ; and resumed a 
bachelor’s life. 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

The robbery at the bank had not languished 
before, and did not cease to occupy a front 
place in the attention of the principal of that 
establishment now. In trustful proof of his 
promptitude and activity, as a remarkable 
man, and a self-made man, and a commercial 
wonder, more admirable than Menus, who had 
risen out of the mud instead of the sea, he 
liked to show how little his domestic affairs 
abated his business ardor. Consequently in 
the first few weeks of his resumed bachelor- 
hood, he even advanced upon his usual display 
of lustre, and every day made such a rout in 
renewing his investigations into the robbery, 
that the professional persons who had it in 
hand almost wished it had never been commit- 
ted. f 

They were at fault too, and off the scent. 
Although they had been so quiet since the 
first outbreak of the matter, that most people 
really did suppose it to have been abandoned 
as hopeless, nothing new occurred. No im- 
plicated man or woman took untimely courage 
or ma le a self-betraying step. More remarka- 
ble yet, Stephen Blackpool was not found, and 
the mysterious old woman remained a mys- 
tery. 

Things having come to this pass, and show- 
ing no latent signs of stirring beyond it, the 
upshot of Mr. Bounderby’s investigations 
was, that he resolved to hazard a bold burst. 
He drew up a placard, offering Twenty 
Pounds reward for the apprehension of 
Stephen Blackpool, suspected of complicity in 
the robbery of the Coketown Bank on such 
a night ; he described the said Stephen 
Blackpool by dress, complexion, estimated 
height, and manner, as minutely as he could ; 
he "recited how he had left the town, and in 
what direction he had been last seen going ; 
he had the whole printed in great black letters 
on a staring broadsheet ; and caused the 
walls to be posted with it in the dead of 
the night, so that it should strike upon the 
sight of the whole population at one blow. 

The factory-bells had need to ring their 
loudest that morning to disperse the groups of 
workers who stood in the tardy daybreak, 
collected round the placards, devouring them 
with eager eyes. Not the least eager of the eyes 
assembled were the eyes of those who could 


not read. These people, as they listened to 
the friendly voice that read aloud — there 
was always some such ready to help them — - 
started at the characters which meant. so much 
with a vague awe and respect that would have 
been half ludicrous if such a picture of a 
Country as a suicidal Idiot with its sword oi 
state at its own heart could ever be other 
wise than wholly shocking. Many ears and 
eyes were busy with a vision of the matter ol 
these placards, among turning spindles, rattling 
looms and whirring wheels, for hours after- 
wards ; and when the Hands cleared out 
again into the streets, there were as many 
readers as before. 

Slackbridge, the delegate, had to address 
his audience too that night, and Slackbridge 
had obtained a clean bill from the printer, 
and had brought it in his pocket. Oh my 
friends and fellow countrymen, the down- 
trodden operatives of Coketown, oh my 
fellow brothers and fellow workmen ana 
fellow citizens and fellow men, what a stii 
was there when Slackbridge unfolded what 
he called “ that damning document,” and held 
it up to the gaze, and for the execration, ol 
the working-man community ! “ Oh my 

fellow men, behold of what a traitor in the 
camp of those great spirits who are enrolled 
upon the holy scroll of Justice and of Union, 
is appropriately capable! Oh my prostrate 
friends, with the galling yoke of tyrants on 
your necks and the iron foot of despotism 
treading down your fallen forms into the dust 
of the earth, upon which right glad would 
your oppressors be to see you creeping on 
your bellies all the days of your lives, like the 
serpent in the garden — oh my brothers, and 
shall I as a man not add my sisters too, what 
do you say, now , of Stephen Blackpool, with a 
slight stoop in his shoulders and about five 
foot seven in height, as set forth in this de- 
grading and disgusting document, this blight- 
ing bill, this pernicious placard, this abomi- 
nable advertisement ; and with what majesty 
of denouncement, will you crush the viper 
who would bring this stain and shame upon 
the Godlike race that happily has cast him 
out for ever! Yes my compatriots, happily 
cast him out and sent him forth ! For you 
remember how he stood here before you on 
this platform ; you remember how, face to 
face and foot to foot, I pursued him through 
all his intricate windings ; you remember 
how he sneaked, and skunked, and sidled, and 
splitted straws, until with not an inch of 
ground to which to cling, I hurled him out 
from amongst us : an object for the undying 
finger of scorn to point at, and for the 
avenging fire of every free and thinking 
mind, to scorch and slur ! And now my 
friends, my labouring friends, for I rejoice 
and triumph in that stigma, my friends ; 
whose hard but honest beds are made in toil, 
and whose scanty but independent pots are 
boiled in hardship ; and, now I say, my friends, 
what appellation has that dastard craveu 


90 


HARD TIMES. 


taken to himself, when, with the mask torn 
from his features, he stands before us in all 
his native deformity, a What? a thief! a 
plunderer ! a proscribed fugitive, with a price 
upon his head ; a fester and a wound upon 
the noble character of the Coketown opera- 
tive ! Therefore, my band of brothers in a 
sacred bond, to which your children and your 
children's children yet unborn have set their 
infant hands and seals, I propose to you on the 
part of the United Aggregate Tribunal, ever 
watchful for your welfare, ever zealous for 
your benefit, that this meeting does Resolve : 
That Stephen Blackpool, weaver, referred to 
in this placard, having been already solemnly 
disowned by the community of Coketown 
Hands, the same are free from the shame of 
his misdeeds, and cannot as a class be re- 
proached with his dishonest actions I” 

Thus Slackbridge ; gnashing and perspiring 
after a prodigious sort A few stern voices 
called out “ No !” and a score or two hailed 
with assenting cries of “Hear, hear!” the 
caution from one man, “ Slackbridge, y’or 
over better int ; y’or a goen too fast !” But 
these were pigmies against an army ; the 
general assemblage subscribed to the gospel 
according to Slackbridge, and gave three 
cheers for him, as he sat demonstratively 
panting at them. 

These men and women were yet in the 
streets, passing quietly to their homes, when 
Sissy, who had been called away from Louisa 
some minutes before, returned. 

“ Who is it ?” asked Louisa. 

“It is Mr. Bounderby,” said Sissy, timid of 
the name, “ and your brother Mr. Tom, and 
a young woman who says her name is Rachael, 
and that you know her.” 

“ What do they want, Sissy dear ?” 

“ They want to see you. Rachael has been 
crying and seems angry.” 

“Father,” said Louisa, for he was present, 
“ I cannot refuse to see them, for a reason you 
will soon understand. Shall they come in 
here ?” 

As he answered in the affirmative Sissy went 
away to bring them. She reappeared with 
them directly. Tom was last, and remained 
standing in the obscurest part of the room, 
near the door. 

“ Mrs. Bounderby,” said her husband, enter- 
ing with a cool nod, “ I don’t disturb you, I 
hope. This is an unseasonable hour, but here 
is a young woman who has been making state- 
ments which render my visit necessary. Tom 
Gradgrind, as your son, young Tom, refuses 
for some obstinate reason or other to say any- 
thing at all about those statements, good or 
bad, I am obliged to confront her with your 
daughter.” 

“ You have seen me once before, young 
lady,” said Rachael, standing in front of 
Louisa. 

Tom coughed. 

“You have seen me, young lady,” repeated 
Rachael, as she did not answer, “ once before.” 


Tom coughed again. 

“ I have.” 

Rachael cast her eyes proudly towards Mr. 
Bounderby, and said, “ Will you make it 
known where, and who was there ?” 

“ I went to the house where Stephen Black- 
pool lodged, on the night of his discharge from 
his work, and I saw you there. He was there 
too : and an old woman who did not speak, 
and whom I could scarcely see, stood in a 
dark corner. My brother went with me.” 

“ Why couldn't you say so, young Tom ?” 
demanded Bounderby. 

“ I promised my sister I wouldn’t.” Which 
Louisa hastily confirmed. “ And besides,” 
said the whelp bitterly, “she tells her own 
story so precious well — and so full — that 
what business had I to take it out of her 
mouth !” 

“ Say, young lady, if you please,” pursued 
Rachael, “ why, in an evil hour, you ever 
come to Stephen’s that night.” 

“ I felt compassion for him,” said Louisa, 
her color deepening, “ and I wished to know 
what he was going to do, and wished to offer 
him assistance.” 

“ Thank you, ma’am,” said Bounderby. 
“ Much flattered and obliged.” 

“ Did you offer him,” asked Rachael, “ a 
bank note ?” 

“ Yes ; but he refused it, and would only 
take two pounds in gold.” 

Rachael cast her eyes towards Mr. Boun- 
derby again. 

“ Oh certainly !” said Bounderby. “ If you 
put the question whether your ridiculous and 
improbable account was true or not, I am 
bound to say it is .confirmed.” 

“Young lady,” said Rachael, “Stephen 
Blackpool is now named as a robber in public 
print all over this town and everywhere else ! 
There have been a meeting to-night where 
he have been spoken of in the same shameful 
way. Stephen ! The honestest lad, the truest 
lad, the best !” Her indignation failed her, 
and she broke off, sobbing. 

“ I am very, very sorry,” said Louisa. 

“ 0 young lady, young lady,” returned 
Rachael, “I hope you maybe, but I don’t 
know ! I can’t say what you may ha’ done ! 
The like of you don’t feel for us, don’t care 
for us, don’t belong to us. I am not sure why 
you may ha’ come that night. I can’t tell 
but what you may ha’ come wi’ some aim 
of your own, not mindin’ to what trouble you 
brought such as the poor lad. I said then, 
Bless you for coming, and I said it of my 
heart, you seemed to take so pitifully to him, 
but I don’t know now, I don’t know!” 

Louisa could not reproach her for her 
unjust suspicions ; she was so faithful to her 
idea of the man, and so unhappy. 

“ And when I think,” said Rachael through 
her sobs, “ that the poor lad was so grateful, 
thinkin’ you so good to him — when I mind 
that he put his hand over his hard-worken 
face to hide the tears that you brought up 


HARD TIMES. 


91 


there — 0 I hope you may be sorry, and ha’ 
no bad cause to be it, but I don't know, I 
don’t know 1” 

“ You’re a pretty article,” growled the 
whelp, moving uneasily in his dark corner, 
“ to come here with these precious imputa- 
tions ! You ought to be bundled out for not 
knowing how to behave yourself, and you 
would be by rights.” 

She said nothing in reply, and her low 
weeping was the only sound that was heard, 
until Mr. Bounder by spoke. 

“ Come !” said he, “ you know what you 
have engaged to do. You had better give 
your mind to that ; not this.” 

“ ’Deed, I am loath,” returned Rachael, 
drying her eyes, “ that any here should see 
me greet ; but I won’t be seen so again. 
Young lady, when I had read what’s put in 
print of Stephen — and what has just as much 
truth in it as if it had been put in print of 
you, and no more — I went straight to the 
Bank to say I knew where Stephen was, and 
to give a sure and certain promise that he 
should be here in two days. I couldn’t meet 
wi’ Mr. Bounderby then, and your brother 
sent me away, and I tried to find you, but 
you was not to be found, and I went back to 
work. Soon as I come out of the Mill to- 
night I hastened to hear what was said of 
Stephen — for I know wi’ pride he will come 
back to shame it ! — and then I went again to 
seek Mr. Bounderby, and I found him, and I 
told him every word I knew, and he believed 
no word I said, and brought me here.” 

“So far that’s true enough,” assented 
Mr. Bounderby, with his hands in his pockets 
and his hat on. “But I have known you 
people before to-day, you’ll observe, and I 
know you never die for want of talking. 
Now, I recommend you not so much to mind 
talking just now, as doing. You have under- 
taken to do something 5 all I remark upon 
that at present is, do it!” 

“ I have written to Stephen by the post that 
went out this afternoon, as I have written to 
him once before sin’ he went away,” said 
Rachael ; “ and he will be here at furthest, 
in two days.” 

“ Then I’ll tell you something. You are 
not aware, perhaps,” retorted Mr. Bounderby, 
“ that you yourself have been looked after 
now and then, not being considered quite free 
from suspicion in this business, on account of 
most people being judged according to the 
company they keep. The post-office hasn’t 
been forgotten either. What I’ll tell you is, 
that no letter to Stephen Blackpool has ever 
got into it. Therefore, what has become of 
yours, I leave you to guess. Perhaps you’re 
mistaken, and never wrote any.” 

“ He hadn’t been gone from here, young 
lady,” said Rachael, turning appealingly to 
Louisa, “as much as a week, when he sent 
me the only letter I have had, saying that he 
was forced to seek work in another name.” 

“ Oh, by George !” cried Bounderby, with 


a whistle, “he changes his name, does he! 
That’s rather unlucky, too, for such an imma- 
culate lad. It’s considered a little suspicious 
in Courts of Justice, I believe, when an Inno- 
cent happens to have many names.” 

“What,” said Rachael, with the tears in 
her eyes again, — “ what, young lady, in the 
name of Mercy, was left the poor lad to do ! 
The masters against him on one hand, the 
men against him on the other, he only wantin’ 
to work hard in peace, and do what he felt 
right. Can a man have no soul of his own, 
no mind of his own ? Must he go wrong all 
through wi’ this side, or must he go wrong 
all through wi’ that, or else be hunted like a 
hare ?” 

“Indeed, indeed, I pity him from my 
heart,” returned Louisa ; “ and I hope that 
he will clear himself.” 

“ You need have no fear of it, young lady. 
He is sure !” 

“ All the surer, I suppose,” said Mr. Boun- 
derby, “ for your refusing to tell where he is ? 
Eh lass ?” 

“ He shall not, through any act of mine, 
come back wi’ the unmerited reproach of 
being brought back. He shall come back of 
his own accord to clear himself, and put all 
those that have injured his good character, 
and he not here for its defence, to shame. I 
have told him what has been done against 
him,” said Rachael, throwing off all distrust 
as a rock throws off the sea, “ and he will be 
here, at furthest, in two days.” 

“ Notwithstanding which,” added Mr. 
Bounderby, “ if he can be laid hold of sooner, 
he shall have an earlier opportunity of clear- 
ing himself. As to you, I have nothing 
against you ; what you came and told me 
turns out to be true, and I have given you 
the means of proving it to be true, and there’s 
an end of it. I wish you Good-night all ! 
I must be off to look a little further into 
this.” 

Tom came out of his corner when Mr. 
Bounderby moved, moved with him, kept 
close to him, and went away with him. The 
only partiug salutation of which he delivered 
himself was a sulky “ Good night, father !” 
With that brief speech, and a scowl at his 
sister, he left the house. 

Since his sheet-anchor had come home, Mr. 
Gradgrind had been sparing of speech. He 
still sat silent, when Louisa mildly s rid : 

“ Rachael, you will not distrust me one 
day, when you know me better.” 

“ It goes against me,” Rachael answered, 
in a gentle manner, “ to mistrust any one ; 
but when I am so mistrusted — when we all 
are — I cannot keep such things quite out of 
my mind. I ask your pardon for having done 
you an injury. I don’t think what I said, 
now. Yet I might come to think it again, 
wi’ the poor lad so belied.” 

“ Did you tell him in your letter,” inquired 
Sissy, “ that suspicion seemed to have fallen 
upon him, because he had been seen about 


92 


HARD TIMES. 


the hank at night ? He would then know 
what he would have to explain on coming 
back, and would be ready.” 

“ Yes, dear,” she returned; “but I can’t 
guess what can have ever taken him there. 
He never used to go there. It was never in 
his way. His way was the same as mine, and 
not near it. 

Sissy had already been at her side asking 
her where she lived, and whether she might 
come to-morrow-night, to inquire if there were 
news. 

“ I doubt,” said Rachael, “ if he can be here 
till next day.” 

“ Then I will come next night too,” said 
Sissy. 

When Rachael, assenting to this, was gone, 
Mr. Gradgrind lifted up his head, and said to 
his daughter : 

“ Louisa, my dear, I have never, that I 
know of seen this man. Do you believe him 
to be implicated ?” 

“I think I have believed it, father, though 
with great difficulty. I do not believe it 
now.” 

“ That is to say, you once persuaded your- 
self to believe it, from knowing him to be 
suspected. Ilis appearance and manner ; are 
they so honest ?” 

“ Very honest.” 

“ And hdr confidence not to be shaken. I 
ask myself, then,” said Mr. Gradgrind, musing, 
“ does the real culprit know of these accusa- 
tions? Where is he? Who is he?” 

His hair had latterly begun to change its 
color. As he leaned upon his hand again, 
looking gray and old, Louisa, with a face of 
fear and pity, hurriedly went over to him, 
and sat close at his side. Her eyes 
by accident met Sissy’s at this moment. 
Sissy flushed and started, and Louisa put her 
finger on her lip. 

Next night when Sissy returned home and 
told Louisa that Stephen was not come, she 
told it in a whisper. Next night again, when 
she came home with the same account, and 
added that he had not been neard of, she 
spoke in the same low frightened tone. From 
the moment of that interchange of looks, they 
never uttered his name, or any reference to 
him aloud ; nor ever pursued the subject of 
the robbery when Mr. Gradgrind spoke of it. 

The two appointed days ran out, three 
days and nights ran out, and Stephen Black- 
pool was not come, and remained unheard of. 
On the fourth day, Rachael, with unabated 
confidence, but considering her despatch to 
have miscarried, went up to the Bank, and 
showed her letter from him with his address, 
at a working colony, one of many, uot upon 
the main road, some sixty miles away. Mes- 
sengers were sent to that place, and the whole 
town looked for Stephen to be brought in 
next day. 

All this time the whelp moved about with 
Mr. Bounderby like his shadow, assisting in 
all the proceedings. He was greatly excited, 


horribly fevered, bit his nails down to the 
quick, spoke in a hard rattling voice, and 
with lips that were black and burnt up. At 
the time when the suspected man was looked 
for, the whelp was at the station, offering to 
wager that he had made off before the arrival 
of those who were sent in quest of him, and 
that he would not appear. 

The whelp was right. The messengers 
returned alone. Rachael’s letter had gone, 
Rachael’s letter had been delivered, Stephen 
Blackpool had decamped in that same hour ; 
and no soul knew more of him. The only 
doubt in Coketown was, whether Rachael had 
written in good faith, believing that he really 
would come back ; or warning him to fly. 
On this point opinion was divided. 

Six days, seven, far on into another week. 
The wretched whelp plucked up a ghastly 
courage, and began to grow defiant. “ Was 
the suspected fellow the thief? A pretty 
question ! If not, where was the man, and 
why did he not come back?” 

Where was the man, and why did he not 
come back ? In the dead of night the echoes 
of his own words, which had rolled Heaven 
knows how far away in the daytime, came 
back instead, and abided by him until morn- 
ing. 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

Day and night again, day and night again. 
No Stephen Blackpool. Where was the man, 
and why did he not come back ? 

Every night Sissy went to Rachael's lodg- 
ing, and sat with her in her small neat ^'oom. 
All day, Rachael toiled as such people must 
toil, whatever their anxieties. The smoke- 
serpents were indifferent who was lost or 
found, who was bad or good ; the melancholy 
mad elephants, like the Hard Fact men, 
abated nothing of their set routine, whatever 
happened. Day and night again, day and 
night again, the monotony was unshaken. Even 
Stephen Blackpool’s disappearance was falling 
into the general way, and becoming as 
monotonous a wonder as any piece of ma- 
chinery in Coketown. 

“ I misdoubt,” said Rachael, “ if there is as 
many as twenty left in all this place who 
have any trust in the poor dear lad now.” 

She said it to Sissy as they sat in her 
lodging, lighted only by the lamp at the 
street corner. Sissy had come there when it 
was already dark, to wait for her return from 
work ; and they had siuce sat at the window 
where Rachael had found her, wanting no 
brighter light to shine on their sorrowful 
talk. 

“ If it hadn’t been mercifully brought 
about that I was to have you to speak to,” 
pursued Rachael, “ times are when I think 
my mind would not have kept right. But I 
get hope and strength through you, and you 
believe that though appearances may rise 
against him, he will be proved clear, living 
or dead.” 


HARD TIMES. 


93 


“ I do believe so,” returned Sissy, “ with 
my whole heart. I feel so certain, Rachael, 
that the confidence you hold in yours against 
all discouragement, is not like to be wrong, 
that I have no more doubt of him than if I 
had known him through as many years of 
trial as you have.” 

“ And I, my dear,” said Rachael, with a 
tremble in her voice, “ have known him 
through them all, to be, according to his 
quiet ways, so faithful to everything honest 
and good, that if he was never to be heard of 
more, and I -was to live to be a hundred 
years old, I would say with my last breath, 
God knows my heart, I have never once left 
trusting Stephen Blackpool !” 

“ We all believe, up at the Lodge, Rachael, 
that he will be freed, from suspicion, sooner 
or later.” 

“ The better I know it to be so believed 
there, my dear,” said Rachael, “ and the 
kinder I feel it that you come away from 
there purposely to comfort me, and keep me 
company, and be seen wi’ me when I am not 
yet free from all suspicion myself, the more 
grieved I am that I should ever have spoken 
those mistrusting words to the young lady. 
And yet — ” 

“ You don’t mistrust her now, Rachael?” 

“ Now that you have brought us more 
together, no ; not her. But I can’t at all 
times keep out of my mind — ” 

Her voice so sunk into a low and slow 
communing with herself, that Sissy, sitting 
by her side, was obliged to listen with 
attention. 

“ I can't at all times keep out of my mind, 
mistrustings of some one. I can’t think w T ko 
’tis, I can’t think how or why it may be done, 
but I mistrust that some one has put Stephen 
out of the way. I mistrust that by his coming 
back of his own accord, and showing himself 
innocent before them all, some one would be 
confounded, who — to prevent that — has 
stopped him and put him out of the way.” 

“ That is a dreadful thought,” said Sissy, 
turning pale. 

“ It is a dreadful thought to think he may 
be murdered.” 

Sissy shuddered, and turned paler yet. 

“ When it makes its way into my mind, 
dear,” said Rachael, “ and it will come some- 
times, though I do all I can to keep it out, 
wi’ counting on to high numbers as I work, 
and saying over and over again pieces that I 
knew when I were a child, I fall into such a 
wild hot hurry, that, however tired I am, I 
want to walk fast, miles and miles. I must 
get the better of this before my bed-time. I’ll 
walk home wi’ you now.” 

“ He might fall ill upon the journey,” said 
Sissy, faintly offering a 'worn-out scrap of 
hope ; “ and in such a case there are many 
places on the road where he might stop.” 

“ But he is in none of them. He’s been 
sought for in all, and he’s not there.”. 

“ True,” was Sissy’s reluctant admission. 


“ He’d walk the journey in two days. If 
he was footsore and couldn’t walk, I sent him, 
in the letter he got, the money to ride, lest 
he should have none of his own to spare.” 

“ Let us hope that to-morrow will bring 
something better, Rachael. Come into the 
air ! ” 

Her gentle hand adjusted Rachael's shawl 
upon her shining black hair in the usual 
manner of her wearing it, and they went out. 
The night being fine, little knots of Hands 
were here and there lingering at street-cor- 
ners ; but it was supper-time with the greater 
part of them, and there were but few people 
in the streets. 

“ You are not so hurried now, Rachael, aud 
your hand is cooler.” 

“ I get better dear, if I can only walk and 
breathe a little fresh. Times when I can’t, I 
turn weak and confused.” v 

“ But you must not begin to fail, Rachael, 
for you may be wanted at any time to stand 
for Stephen. To-morrow is Saturday. If no 
new r s comes to-morrow, let us walk in the 
country on Sunday morning, and strengthen 
you for another week. Will you go ?” 

“ Yes, dear.” 

They were by this time in the street where 
Mr. Bounderby’s house stood. The way to 
Sissy’s destination led them past the door, 
and they were going straight towards it. 
Some train had just arrived in Coketown, 
which had put a number of. vehicles in 
motion, and scattered a considerable bustle 
about the town. Several coaches were rat- 
tling before them and behind them as they 
approached Mr. Bounderby’s, and one of the 
latter drew up with such briskness as they 
were in the act of passing the house, that 
they looked round involuntarily. The bright 
gaslight over Mr. Bounderby’s steps showed 
them Mrs. Sparsit in the coach in an ecstasy 
of excitement, struggling to open the door ; 
Mrs. Sparsit seeing them at the same moment, 
called to them to stop. 

“ It’s a coincidence,” exclaimed Mrs. Spar- 
sit, as she was released by the coachman. 
“ It’s a Providence ! Come out, ma'am !” 
then said Mrs. Sparsit, to some one inside, 
“ come out, or we’ll have you dragged out !” 

Hereupon, no other thau the mysterious 
old woman descended ; whom Mrs. Sparsit 
incontinently collared. 

“ Leave her alone, everybody !” cried Mrs. 
Sparsit, with great energy. “ Let nobody 
touch her. She belongs to me. Come in, 
ma’am !” then said Mrs. Sparsit, reversing 
her former word of command. “ Come in, 
ma’am, or we’ll have you dragged in !” 

The spectacle of a Roman-nosed matron of 
classical deportment, seizing an ancient 
woman by the throat, and hauling her into a 
dwelling-house, would have been, under any 
circumstances, sufficient temptation to all 
true English stragglers so blest as to witness 
it, to force a way into that dwelling-house 
and see the matter out. But when the phe- 


94 


HARD TIMES. 


nomenon was enhanced by the notoriety and 
mystery by this time associated all over the 
town, with the Bank robbery, it would have 
lined the stragglers with an irresistible at- 
traction, though the roof had been expected 
to fall upon their heads. Accordingly, the 
chance witnesses on the ground, consisting of 
the busiest of the neighbours, to the number 
of some five-and- twenty, closed in after Sissy 
and Rachael, as they closed in after Mrs. 
Sparsit and her prize ; and the whole body 
made a disorderly irruption into Mr. Boun- 
derby’s dining room, where the people behind 
lost not a moment’s time in mounting on the 
chairs to get the better of the people in 
front. 

Fetch Mr. Bounderby down!” cried Mrs. 
Sparsit. “ Rachael, young woman ; you know 
who this is?” 

“ It’s Mrs. Pegler,” said Rachael. 

“ I should think it is !” cried Mrs. Sparsit, 
exulting. “ Fetch Mr. Bounderby. Stand 
away everybody !” Here old Mrs. Pegler, 
muffling herself up, and shrinking from obser- 
vation, whispered a word of entreaty. “ Don’t 
tell me,” said Mrs. Sparsit aloud, “ I have 
told you twenty times, coming along, that I 
will not leave you till I have handed you over 
to him myself.” 

Mr. Bounderby now appeared, accompanied 
by Mr. Gradgrind and the whelp, with whom 
he had been holding conference upstairs. 
Mr. Bounderby looked more astonished than 
hospitable at sight of this uninvited party 
in his dining-room. 

“ Why, what’s the matter now !” said he. 
“ Mrs. Sparsit, ma’am ?” 

“ Sir,” explained that worthy woman, “ I 
trust it is my good fortune to produce a 
person you have much desired to find. Sti- 
mulated by my wish to relieve your mind, 
sir, and connecting together such imperfect 
clues to the part of the country in which that 
person might be supposed to reside, as have 
been afforded by the young woman Rachael, 
fortunately now present to identify, I have 
had the happiness to succeed, and to bring 
that person with me — I need not say most 
unwillingly on her part. It has not been, sir, 
without some trouble that I have effected 
this ; but trouble in your service is to me a 
pleasure, and hunger, thirst, and cold, a real 
gratification.” 

Here Mrs. Sparsit ceased, for Mr. Boun- 
derby ’s visage exhibited an extraordinary com- 
bination of all possible colors and expressions 
of discomfiture as old Mrs. Pegler was dis- 
closed to his view. 

“ Why, what do you mean by this !” was 
his highly unexpected demand, in great wrath. 
“ I ask you what do you mean by this, Mrs. 
Sparsit, ma’am ?” 

“ Sir?” exclaimed Mrs. Sparsit, faintly. 

“ Why don’t you mind your own business, 
ma’am ?” roared Bounderby. “ How dare 
you go and poke your officious nose into my 
family affairs ?” 


This allusion to her favorite feature over- 
powered Mrs. Sparsit. She sat down stiffly in 
a chair, as if she were frozen, and with a 
fixed stare at Mr. Bounderby, slowly grated 
her mittens against one another, as if they 
were frozen. 

“ My dear Josiah,” said Mrs. Pegler, 
trembling, “ my darling boy ! I am not to 
blame. It’s not my fault, Josiah. I told 
this lady over and over again, that I knew she 
was doing what would not be agreeable, but 
she would do it.” 

“ What did you let her bring you for? 
Couldn’t you knock her cap off, o? her tooth 
out, or scratch her, or do something to her ?” 
asked Bounderby. 

“ My own boy ! She threatened me that 
if I resisted her I should be brought by 
constables, and it was better to come quietly 
than make that stir in such a — ” Mrs. Pegler 
glanced timidly but proudly round the walls 
— “ such a fine house as this. Indeed, indeed, 
it is not my fault ; my dear, noble, stately boy. 
I have always lived quiet and secret, Josiah, 
my dear. I have never broken the condition 
once. I have never said I was your mother. 
I have admired you at a distance ; and if I 
have come to town sometimes, with long 
times between, to take a proud peep at you, 
I have done it unbeknown, my love, and gone 
away again.” 

Mr. Bounderby, with his hands in his 
pockets, walked in impatient mortification up 
and down at the side of the long dining-table, 
while the spectators greedily took in every 
syllable of Mrs. Pegler’s appeal, and at each 
succeeding syllable became more and more 
round-eyed. Mr. Bounderby still walking up 
and down when Mrs. Pegler had done, Mr. 
Gradgrind addressed that maligned old lady : 

“I am surprised, madam,” he observed 
with severity, “that in your old age you have 
the face to claim Mr. Bounderby for your 
son after your unnatural and inhuman treat- 
ment of him.” 

“ Me unnatural !” cried poor old Mrs. 
Pegler. “ Me inhuman ! To my dear boy ?” 

“ Dear !” repeated Mr. Gradgrind. “ Yes ; 
dear in his self-made prosperity, madam, I 
dare say. Not very dear, however, when you 
deserted him in his infancy, and left him to 
the brutality of a drunken grandmother.” 

“ / deserted my Josiah,” cried Mrs. 
Pegler, clasping her hands. “ Lord forgive 
you, sir, for your wicked imaginations, and 
for your scandal against the memory of my 
poor mother, who died in my arms afore 
Josiah was born. May you repent of it, sir, 
and live to know better.” 

She was so very earnest and injured that 
Mr. Gradgrind, shocked by the possibility 
which dawned upon him, said in a gentler 
tone, 

“ Do you deuy, then, madam, that you left 
your son to be brought up in the gutter?” 

“Josiah in the gutter!” exclHiined Mrs. 
Pegler. “ No such a thing, sir. Never! For 


HARD TIMES. 


95 


shame on you ! My dear boy knows, and 
will give you to know, that though he come 
of humble parents, he come of parents that 
loved him as dear as the best could, and never 
thought it hardship on themselves to pinch a 
bit that he might write and cypher beautiful, 
and I’ve his books at home to show it ! Aye, 
have 1 1” said Mrs. Pegler with indignant 
pride. “And my dear boy knows, and will 
give you to know, sir, that after his beloved 
father died when he was eight year old, his 
mother, too, could pinch a bit, as it was her 
duty and her pleasure and her pride to do it, 
to help him out in life, and put him ’pren- 
tice. And a steady lad he was, and a kind 
master he had to lend him a hand, and 
well he worked his own way forward to be 
rich and thriving. And /’ll give you to 
know, sir — for this my dear boy won’t— that 
though his mother kept but a little village 
shop, he never fo.rgot her, but pensioned me 
on thirty pound a year — more than I want, 
for I put by out of it — only making the 
condition that I was to keep down in my 
own part, and make no boasts about him, 
and not trouble him. And I never have, 
except with looking at him once a year, 
when he Jias never knowed it. And it’s 
right,” said poor old Mrs. Pegler, in affec- 
tionate championship, “that I should keep 
down in my own part, and I have no doubts 
that if I was here I should do a many un- 
befitting things, and I am well contented, 
and I can keep my pride in my Josiah to 
myself, and I can love for love’s own sake. 
And I am ashamed of you, sir,” said Mrs. 
Pegler, lastly, “ for your slanders and sus- 
picions. And I never stood here afore, or 
wanted to stand here when my dear son 
said no. And I shouldn’t be here now, if 
it hadn’t been for being brought. And for 
shame upon you, for shame, to accuse me of 
being a bad mother to my son with my son 
standing here to tell you so different !” 

The bystanders, on and off the dining- 
room chairs, raised a murmur of sympathy 
with Mrs. Pegler, and Mr. Gradgrind felt 
himself innocently placed in a very distress- 
ing predicament, when Mr. Bounderby, who 
had never ceased walking up and down, and 
had every moment swelled larger and larger 
and grown redder and redder, stopped 
short. 

“ I don’t exactly know,” said Mr. Boun- 
derby, “ how I come to be favored with the 
attendance of the present company, but I 
don’t inquire. When they’re quite satisfied, 
perhaps they’ll be so good as disperse ; 
whether they’re satisfied or not, perhaps 
they’ll be so good as disperse. I’m not bound 
to deliver a lecture on my family affairs, I 
have not undertaken to do it, and I’m not a 
going to do it. Therefore those who expect 
any explanation whatever upon that branch 
of the subject will be disappointed — particu- 
larly Tom Gradgrind, and he can’t know it 
too soon. In reference to the Bank robbery, 


there has been a mistake made, concerning 
my mother. If there hadn’t been over- 
officiousness it wouldn’t have been made, and 
I hate over-officiousness at all times, whether 
or no. Good evening !” 

Although Mr. Bounderby carried it off in 
these terms, holding the door open for the 
company to depart, there' was a blustering 
sheepishness upon him, at once extremely 
crest-fallen and superlatively absurd. De- 
tected as the bully of humility who had built 
his windy reputation upon lies, and in his 
boastfulness had put the honest truth as far 
away from him as if he had preferred the 
mean claim (there is no meaner) to tack 
himself on to a pedigree, he cut a most ridi- 
culous figure. With the people filing off at 
the door he held, who he knew would carry 
what had passed to the whole town, to be 
given to the four winds, he could not have 
looked a Bully more shorn and forlorn, if he 
had had his ears cropped. Even that unlucky 
female Mrs. Sparsit, fallen from her pinnacle 
of exultation into the Slough of Despond, was 
not in so bad a plight as that remarkable 
man and self-made Humbug, Josiah Boun- 
derby of Coketown. 

Rachael and Sissy, leaving Mrs. Pegler to 
occupy a bed at her son’s for that night, 
walked together to the gate of Stone Lodge, and 
there parted. Mr. Gradgrind joined them 
before they had gone very far, and spoke with 
much interest of Stephen Blackpool, for whom 
he thought this signal failure of the suspi- 
cions against Mrs. Pegler was likely to work 
well. 

As to the whelp ; throughout this scene, as 
on all other late occasions, he had stuck close 
to Bounderby. He seemed to feel that as long 
as Bounderby could make no discovery 
without his knowledge he was so far safe. He 
never visited his sister, and had only seen her 
once since she went home, that is to say on 
the night when he still stuck close to Boun- 
derby as already related. 

There was one dim unformed fear lingering 
about his sister’s mind, to which she never 
gave utterance, which surrounded the graceless 
and ungrateful boy with a dreadful mystery. 
The same dark possibility had presented itself 
in the same shapeless guise, this very day to 
Sissy when Rachael spoke of some one who 
would be confounded by Stephen’s return, 
having put him out of the way. Louisa had 
never spoken of her harboring any suspicion 
of her brother in connexion with the robbery, 
she and Sissy had held no confidence on the 
subject saving in that one interchange of looks 
when the unconscious father rested his gray 
head on his hand ; but it was understood 
between them, and they both knew it. This 
other fear was so awful that it hovered about 
each of them like a ghostly shadow, neither 
daring to think of its being near herself, far 
less of its being near the other. 

And still the forced spirit which the whelp 
nad plucked up throve with him. If Stephen 


96 


HARD TIMES. 


Blackpool was not the thief, let him show 
himself. Why didn’t he ? 

Another night. Another day and night. 
No Stephen Blackpool ? Where was the man, 
and why did he not come back ? 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

The Sunday was a bright Sunday in 
autumn, clear and cool, when early in the 
morning Sissy and Rachael met, to walk in 
the country. 

As Coketown cast ashes not only on its 
own head but on the neighbourhood’s too — 
after the manner of those pious persons who 
do penance for their own sins by putting 
other people into sackcloth — it was customary 
for those who now and then thirsted for a 
draught of pure air, which is not absolutely 
the most wicked among the vanities of life, 
to get a few miles away by the railroad, and 
then begin their walk, or their lounge in the 
fields. Sissy and Rachael helped themselves 
out of the smoke by the usual means, and 
were put down at a station about midway 
between the town and Mr. Bounder by ’s re- 
treat. 

Though the green landscape was blotted 
here and there with heaps of coal, it was 
green, and there were trees to see, and there 
were larks singing (though it was Sunday), 
and there were pleasant scents in the air, and 
all was overarched by a bright blue sky. In 
the distance one way, Coketown showed as a 
black mist ; in another distance, hills began 
to rise ; in a third, there was a faint change 
in the light of the horizon, where it shone 
upon the far-off sea. Under their feet, the 
grass was fresh ; beautiful shadows of branches 
flickered upon it and speckled it 5 hedgerows 
were luxuriant ; everything was at peace. 
Engines at pits’ mouths, and lean old horses 
that had worn the circle of their daily labor 
into the ground, were alike quiet ; wheels had 
«eased for a short space to turn ; and the 
great wheel of earth seemed to revolve with- 
out the shocks and noises of another time. 

They walked on across the fields and down 
the shady lanes, sometimes getting over a 
fragment of a fence so rotton that it dropped 
at a touch of the foot, sometimes passing near 
a wreck of bricks and beams overgrown with 
grass, marking the site of some deserted 
works. They followed paths and tracks, 
however slight. Mounds where the grass 
was rank and high, and where brambles, dock- 
weeds, and such-like vegetation were con- 
fusedly heaped together, they always avoided ; 
for dismal stories were told in that country 
of the old pits hidden beneath such indica- 
tions. 

The sun was high when they sat down to 
rest. They had seen no one, near or distant, 
for a long time, and the solitude remained 
unbroken. “ It is so still here, Rachael, and 
the way is so untrodden, that I think we 
must be the first who have been here all the 
summer.” 


As Sissy said it, her eyes were attracted by 
another of those rotton fragments of fence 
upon the ground. She got up to look at it. 
“ And yet I don’t know. This has not 
been broken very long. The wood is quite 
fresh where it gave way. Here are footsteps 
too. 0 Rachael !” 

She ran back and caught her round the 
neck. Rachael had already started up. 

“ What is the matter ?” 

li I don’t know. There is a hat lying in the 
grass.” 

They went forward together. Rachael took 
it up, shaking from head to foot. She broke 
into a passion of tears and lamentations ; 
Stephen Blackpool was written in his own 
hand on the inside. 

“ 0 the poor lad, the poor lad ! He has 
been made away with. He is lying murdered 
here !” 

“ Is there — has the hat any blood upon it?” 
Sissy faltered. 

They were afraid to look, but they did 
examine it, and found no mark of violence, 
inside or out. It had been lying there some 
days, for rain and dew had stained it, and it 
left the mark of its shape on the grass where 
it had fallen. They looked fearfully about 
them, without moving, but could see nothing 
more. “ Rachael,” Sissy whispered, “ I will 
go on a little by myself.” 

She had unclasped her hand, and was in 
the act of stepping forward, when Rachael 
caught her in both arms with a scream that 
resounded over the wide landscape. Before 
them, at their very feet, was the brink of a 
black ragged chasm, hidden by the thick 
grass. They sprang back, and fell upon their 
knees, each hiding her face upon the other’s 
neck. 

“ 0 my good God ! He’s down there ! 
Down there !” At first this and her terrific 
screams were all that could be got from 
Rachael by any tears, by any prayers, by any 
representations, by any means. It was impos- 
sible to hush her, and it was deadly necessary 
to hold her, or she would have distractedly 
flung herself down the shaft. 

“ Rachael, dear Rachael, good Rachael, for 
the love of Heaven, not these dreadful cries! 
Think of Stephen, think of Stephen, think of 
Stephen !” 

By an earnest repetition of this entreaty, 
poured out in all the agony of such a time, 
Sissy at last brought her to be silent, and to 
look at her with a tearless face of stone. 

“ Rachael, Stephen may be living. You 
wouldn’t leave him lying maimed at the bot- 
tom of this dreadful place a moment if you 
could bring help to him !” 

“ No no no !” 

“ Don’t stir from here, for his sake ! Let 
me go and listen.” 

She shuddered to approach the pit, but she 
crept towards it on her hands and knees, and 
called to him as loud as she could call. She 
listened, but no sound replied. She called 


HARD TIMES. 


97 


again and listened ; still no answering sound. 
She did this twenty, thirty times. She took 
a clod of earth from the broken ground where 
he had stumbled, and threw it in. She could 
not hear it fall. 

The wide prospect, so beautiful in its still- 
ness but a few minutes ago, almost carried 
despair to her brave heart, as she rose and 
looked all round her seeing no help. “ Rachael, 
we must lose not a moment. We must go in 
ditferent directions, seeking aid. You shall 
go by the way we have come, and I will go 
forward by the path. Tell any one you see, 
and every one, what has happend. Think of 
Stephen, think of Stephen I” 

She knew by Rachael’s face that she might 
trust her now. After standing for- a moment 
to see her running wringing her hands as she 
went, she turned and went upon her own 
search ; she stopped at the hedge to tie her 
shawl there as a guide to the place, then 
threw her bonnet aside, and ran as she had 
never run before. 

Run, Sissy, run, in Heaven’s name ! Don’t 
stop for breath. Run, run ! Quickening her- 
self by carrying such entreaties in her 
thoughts, she ran from field to field and lane 
to lane, and place to place, as she had never 
run before, until she came to a shed by an 
engine-house, where two men lay in the 
shade asleep on straw. 

First to wake them, and next to tell them, 
all so wild and breathless as she was, what 
had brought her there, were difficulties : but 
they no sooner understood her than their 
spirits were on fire like hers. One of the men 
was in a drunken slumber, but on his com- 
rade’s shouting to him that a man had fallen 
down the Old Hell Shaft, he started out to 
a pool of dirty water, put his head in it, and 
came back sober. 

With these two men she ran to another 
half-a-mile further, and with that one to 
another, while they ran elsewhere. Then a 
horse was found, and she got another man 
to ride for life or death to the railroad, and 
send a message to Louisa, which she wrote 
and gave him. By this time a whole village 
was up ; and windlasses, ropes, poles, buckets, 
candles, lanthorns, all things necessary, were 
fast collecting and being brought into one 
place to be carried to the Old Hell Shaft. 

It seemed now hours and hours since she 
had left the lost man lying in the grave where 
he had been buried alive. She could not bear 
to remain away from it any longer — it was 
like deserting him — and she hurried swiftly 
back, accompanied by half-a-dozen laborers, 
including the drunken man whom the news 
had sobered, and who was the best man of all. 
When they came to the Old Hell Shaft they 
found it as lonely as she had left it. The 
men called and listened as she had done, and 
examined the edge of the chasm, and settled 
how it had happened, and then sat down to 
wait until the implements they wanted should 
come up. 


Every sound of insects in the air, every 
stirring of the leaves, every whisper among 
these men, made Sissy tremble, for she 
thought it was a cry at the bottom of the 
pit. But the wind blew idly over it, and no 
sound arose to the surface, and they sat upon 
the grass, waiting and waiting. After they 
had waited some time, straggling people who 
had heard of the accident began to come up ; 
then the real help of implements began to 
arrive. In the midst of this Rachael returned 5 
and with her party there was a surgeon, who 
brought some wine and medicines. But the 
expectation among the working pitmen that 
the man would be found alive, was very slight 
indeed. 

There being now people enough present to 
impede the work 5 the sobered man put him- 
self at the head of the rest, or was put there 
by the general consent, and made a large ring 
round the Old Hell Shaft, and appointed men 
to keep it. Besides such volunteers as were 
accepted to work, only Sissy and Rachel were 
at first permitted within this ring ; but later in 
the day, when the message brought an express 
from Coketown, Mr. Gradgrind and Louisa, 
and Mr. Bounderby, and the whelp, were also 
there. 

The sun was four hours lower than when 
Sissy and Rachael had first sat down upon 
the grass, before a means of enabling two men 
to descend securely was rigged with poles and 
ropes. Difficulties had arisen in the con- 
struction of this machine, simple as it was ; 
requisites had been found wanting, and mes- 
sages had had to go and return. It was five 
o’clock in the afternoon of a bright autumnal 
Sunday, before a candle was sent down to try 
the air, while three or four rough faces stood 
crowded close together, all actively watching 
it : the men at the windlass lowering as they 
were told. The candle was brought up again, 
feebly burning, and then some water was cast 
in. Then the bucket was hooked on, and the 
sobered man and another got in with lights, 
giving the word “ Lower away !” 

As the rope went out, tight and strained, 
and the windlass creaked, there was not a 
breath among the one or two hundred men 
and women looking on that came as it was 
wont to come. The signal was given and the 
windlass stopped, with abundant rope to 
spare. Apparently so long an interval en- 
sued, with the men at the windlass standing 
idle, that some women shrieked another acci- 
dent had happened. But the surgeon who 
held the watch, declared five minutes not to 
have elapsed yet, and sternly admonished them 
to keep silence. He had not well done speak- 
ing when the windlass was reversed and worked 
again. Practised eyes knew that it did not go 
as heavily as it would if workmen had been 
coming up, and that only one was returning. 

The rope came in tight and strained, and 
ring after ring was coiled upon the barrel of 
the windlass, and all eyes were fastened on 
the pit. The sobered man was brought up, 


•98 


HARD TIMES. 


and leaped out briskly on the grass. There 
was a universal cry of “ alive or dead ?” and 
then a deep, profound hush. 

“ When he said “ alive,” a great shout arose, 
and many eyes had tears in them. 

“ But he’s hurt very bad,” he added, as 
soon as he could make himself heard again. 
“ Where’s doctor ? He’s hurt so very bad, 
sir, that we donno how to get him up.” 

They all consulted together, and looked 
anxiously at the surgeon, as he asked some 
questions and shook his head on receiving the 
replies. The sun was setting now, and the 
red light in the evening sky touched every 
face there, and caused it to be distinctly seen 
in all its wrapt suspense. 

The consultation ended in the men return- 
ing to the windlass, and the pitman going 
down again, carrying the wine and some other 
small matters with him. Then the other man 
came up. In the meantime, under the sur- 
geon’s directions, some men brought a bun- 
dle, on which others made a thick bed of spare 
clothes covered with straw, while he himself 
contrived some bandages and slings from 
shawls and handkerchiefs. As these were 
made, they were hung upon the arm of the 
pitman who had last come up, with instruc- 
tions how to use them ; and as he stood, 
shown in the light he carried, leaning his 
powerful loose hand upon one of the poles, 
and sometimes glancing down the pit and 
sometimes glancing round upon the people, 
he was not the least conspicuous figure in the 
scene. It was dark now, and torches were 
kindled. 

It appeared from the little this man said 
to those about him, which was quickly re- 
peated all over the circle, that the lost man 
had fallen upon a mass of crumbled rubbish 
with which the pit was half choked up, and 
that his fall had further been broken by some 
jagged earth at the side. He lay upon his 
back with one arm doubled under him, and 
according to his belief had hardly stirred 
since he fell, except that he had moved his 
free hand to a side pocket, in which he re- 
membered to have some bread and meat (of 
which he had swallowed crumbs), and had 
likewise scooped up a little water in it now 
and then. He had come straight away from 
his work on being written to ; and had walked 
the whole journey ; and was on his way to 
Mr. Bounderby’s country-house after dark, 
when he fell. He was crossing that dangerous 
country at such a dangerous time because he 
was wholly innocent of what was laid to his 
charge, and couldn’t rest from coming the 
nearest way to deliver himself up. The Old 
Hell Shaft, the pitman said, with a curse 
upon it, was worthy of its bad name to the 
last, for though Stephen could speak now, he 
believed it would soon be found to have man- 
gled the life out of him. 

When all was ready, this man still taking 
his last hurried charges from his comrades 
and the surgeon, after the windlass had begun 


to lower him, disappeared into the pit. The 
rope went out as before, the signal was made 
as before, and the windlass stopped. No man 
removed his hand from it now. Every one 
waited with his grasp set, and his body bent 
down to the work, ready to reverse and wind 
in. At length the signal was given, and all 
the ring leaned forward. 

For now the rope came iii tightened and 
strained to its utmost as it appeared, and the 
men turned heavily, and the windlass com- 
plained. It was scarcely endurable to look 
at the rope, and think of its given way. But 
ring after ring was coiled upon the barrel of 
the windlass safely, and the connecting chains 
appeared, and finally the bucket with the two 
men holding on at the sides — a sight to make 
the head swim, and oppress the heart — and 
tenderly supporting between them, slung and 
tied within, the figure of a poor crushed 
human creature. 

A low murmur of pity went round the 
throng, and ^the women wept aloud, as this 
form, almost without form, was moved very 
slowly from its iron deliverance, and laid 
upon the bed of straw. At first none but the 
surgeon went close to it. He did what he 
could in its adjustment on the couch, but the 
best that he could do was to cover it. That 
gently done, he called to him Rachael and 
Sissy, and at that time the pale, worn, patient 
face was seen looking up at the sky, with the 
broken right hand lying bare on the outside 
of the covering garments, as if waiting to be 
taken by another hand. 

They gave him drink, moistened his face 
with water, and administered some drops of 
cordial and wine. Though he lay quite mo- 
tionless looking up at the sky, he smiled and 
said, “ Rachael.” 

She stooped down on the grass at his side, 
and bent over him until her eyes were be- 
tween his and the sky, for he could not so 
much as turn them to look at her. 

“ Rachael my dear.” 

She took his hand. He smiled again and 
said, “ Don’t let it go.” 

“Thou’rt in great pain, my own dear 
Stephen ?” 

“ I ha’ been, but not now. I ha’ been — 
dreadful, and dree, and long, my dear — but 
’tis ower now. Ah Rachael, aw a muddle! 
Fro’ first to last, a muddle !” 

The spectre of his old look seemed to pass 
as he said the word. 

“ I ha’ fell into th’ pit, my dear, as have 
cost wi’n the knowledge o’ old fok now livin’ 
hundreds and hundreds o’ men’s lives — 
fathers, sons, brothers, dear to thousands an’ 
thousands, and keepin’ ’em fro’ want and 
lunger. I ha’ fell into a pit that ha’ been 
wi’ th’ fire-damp crueller than battle. I ha’ 
read on’t in the public petition, as onny one 
may read, fro’ the men that works in pits, in 
which they ha’ pray’n an pray’n the law- 
makers for Christ’s sake not *to let their 
work be murder to ’em, but to spare ’em for 


HARD TIMES. 


99 


th’ wives and children that they loves as well 
as gentlefolk loves theirs. When it were in 
work, it killed wi’out need: when ’tis let 
alone, it kills wi’out need. See how we die 
an’ no need, one way an’ another — in a mud- 
dle every day !” 

He faintly said it, without any anger 
against any one. Merely as the truth. 

“ Thy little sister, Rachael, thou hast not 
forgot her. Thou’rt not like to forget her now, 
and me so nigh her. Thou know’st, poor, 
patient, suff’rin’ dear, how sh% died, young 
and misshapen ; awlung o’ sickly air as 
had’n no need to be, an’ awlung o’ working 
people’s miserable homes. A muddle ! Aw a 
muddle !” 

Louisa approached him, but he could not 
see her, lying with his face turned up to the 
night sky. 

“ If aw th’ things that touches us, my dear, 
was not so muddled, I should’n’ ha’ had’n 
need to coom heer. If we was not in a mud- 
dle among ourseln, I should’n ha’ been by 
my own fellow weavers and workin’ brothers, 
so mistook. If Mr. Bounderby had ever 
knowd me right — rather if he’d ever know’d 
me at aw — he would’n’ ha’ took’n offence wi’ 
me. He would’n’ ha’ suspect’n me. But 
look up yonder, Rachael ! Look aboove.” 

Following his eyes, she saw that he was 
gazing at a star. 

“ It ha’ shined upon me,” he said reverently, 
“in pain and trouble down below. It ha’ 
shined into my mind. I ha’ lookn an’ thout 
o’ thee, Rachael, till the muddle in my mind 
have cleared awa above a bit, I hope. If 
soom ha’ been wantin in unnerstannin’ me 
belter, I, too, ha’ been wantin in unner- 
stannin’ them better. When I got thy letter, 
I easily believed- that what the yoong lady sen 
an’ done to me, an’ what her brother sen an’ 
done to me were one, an’ that there were a 
wicked plot betwixt un. When I fell, I 
were in anger wi’ her, an’ hurryin’ on t’ be as 
onjust t’ her as others was t’ me. But in our 
judgment like as in our doins, we mun bear 
and forbear. You in my pain an’ trouble 
lookin’ up yonder, — wi’ it shinin’ on me — I ha’ 
seen more clear and ha’ made it my dying 
prayer that aw’ th’ world may on’y cometooge- 
ther more, an’ get a better unnerstanin’ o’ one 
another, than when I were in’t my own weak 
seln.” 

Louisa hearing what he said, bent over him 
on the opposite side to Rachael, so that he 
could see her. 

“You ha’ heard?” he said after a few 
moment’s silence, “ I ha’ not forgot yo’, 
ledy.” 

“ Yes, Stephen, I have heard you. And 
your prayer is mine.” 

“ You ha’ a father. Will yo’ tak a message 
to him?” 

“He is here,” said Louisa, with dread. 
“ Shall I bring him to you ?” 

“ If yo’ please.” 

Louisa returned with her father. Standing 


hand-in-hand, they both looked down upon 
his solemn countenance. 

“ Sir, yo’ will clear me an’ mak’ my name 
good wi’ aw men. This I leave to yo’.” 

Mr. Grad grind was troubled and asked how ? 

“ Sir,” was the reply, “ yor son will tell yo 
how. Ask him. I mak’ no charges. I leave 
none ahint me, not a single word. I ha’ seen 
an’ spok’n wi’ yor son, one night. I ask no 
more o’ yo’ than that, to clear me — an’ I 
trust to yo to do’t.” 

The bearers being now ready to carry him 
away, and the surgeon being anxious for his 
removal, those who had torches or lanterns, 
prepared to go in front of the litter. Before 
it was raised, and while they were arranging 
how to go, he said to Rachael, looking upward 
at the star, — 

“ Often as I coom to myseln, and found it 
shinin’ on me down there in my trouble, I 
thowt it were the star as guided to Our 
Saviour’s home, I awmust think it be the 
very star !” 

They lifted him up, and he was overjoyed 
to find that they were about to take him in 
the direction whither the star seemed to him 
to lead. 

“ Rachael, beloved lass ! Don’t let go my 
hand. We may walk toogether t’night, * 
dear !” 

“I will hold thy hand, and keep beside 
thee, Stephen, all the way.” 

“ Bless thee ! Will soombody be pleased to 
coover my face ?” 

They carried him very gently along the 
fields, and down the lanes, and over the wide 
landscape ; Rachael always holding the hand in 
hers. Very few whispers broke the mournful 
silence. It was soon a fuueral procession. 
The star had shown him where to find the 
God of the poor ; and through humility, and 
sorrow, and forgiveness, he had gone to his 
Redeemer’s rest. 

CHAPTER XXXV. 

Before the ring formed round the Old 
Hell Shaft was broken, one figure had disap- 
peared from within it. Mr. Bounderby and his 
shadow had not stood near Louisa, who held 
her father’s arm, but in a retired place by 
themselves. When Mr. Gradgrind was sum- 
moned to the couch, Sissy, attentive to all 
that happened, slipped behind that wicked 
shadow — a sight in the horror of his face, 
if there had been eyes there for any sight but 
one — and whispered in his ear. Without 
turning his head, for she had begun by telling 
him not even to look round, he conferred with 
her a few moments, and vanished. Thus the 
whelp had gone out of the circle before the 
people moved. 

When the father reached home, he sent a 
message to Mr. Bounderby’s, desiring his son 
to come to him directly. The reply was, that 
Mr. Bounderby having missed him in the 
crowd, and seen nothing of him since, had 
supposed him to be at Stone Lodge. 


100 


HARD TIMES. 


“ I believe, father,” said Louisa, “he will 
not come back to town to-night.” Mr. Grad- 
grind turned away and said no more. 

In the morning, he went down to the Bank 
himself as soon as it was opened, and seeing 
bis son’s place empty (he had not the courage 
to look in at first), went back along the street 
to meet Mr. Bounderby on his \yay there. To 
whom he said that, for reasons he would soon 
explain, but entreated not then to be asked 
for, he had found it necessary to employ his 
son at a distance for a little while. Also, that 
he was charged with the duty of vindicating 
Stephen Blackpool’s memory, and declaring 
the thief. Mr. Bounderby, quite confounded, 
stood stock still in the street after his father- 
in-law had left him, swelling like an immense 
soap-bubble, without its beauty. 

Mr. Gradgrind went home, locked himself 
in his room, and kept it all that day. When 
Sissy and Louisa tapped at his door, he said, 
without opening it, “ Not now, my dears ; in 
the evening.” On their return in the evening, 
he said, “ I am not able yet — to morrow.” He 
ate nothing all day, and had no candle after 
dark, and they heard him walking to and fro 
late at night. 

But in the morning he appeared at breakfast 
at the usual hour, and took his usual place at 
the table. Aged and bent, he looked, and 
quite bowed down ; and yet he looked a 
wiser man, and a better man, than in the days 
when in this life he wanted nothing but 
Facts. Before he left the room, he appointed 
a time for them to come to him, and so, with 
his gray head drooping, went away. 

“ Dear father,” said Louisa, when they kept 
their appointment, “ you have three young 
children left. They will be different. / will 
be different yet, with Heaven’s help.” 

She gave her hand to Sissy, as if she meant 
with the help of her loving heart. 

“Your wretched brother,” said Mr. Grad- 
grind. “ Do you think he had planned this 
robbery, when he went with you to the 
lodging?” 

“ I fear so, father. I know he had wanted 
money very much, and had spent a great 
deal.” 

“ The poor man being about to leave the 
town, it came into his evil brain to cast sus- 
picion on him ?”' 

“ I think it must have flashed upon him while 
he sat there father. For I asked him to go there 
with me. The visit did not originate with him.” 

“He had some conversation with the poor 
man. Did he take him aside ?” 

“ He took him out of the room. I asked 
him afterwards, why he had done so, and he 
made a plausible excuse ; but since last night, 
father, and when I remember the cir- 
cumstances by its light, I am afraid I can 
imagine too truly what passed between them.” 

“ Let me know,” said her father, “ if your 
thoughts present your guilty brother in the 
same dark view as mine do.” 

“I am afraid, father,” reiterated Louisa, 


“ that he must have made some representation 
to Stephen Blackpool — perhaps in my name, 
perhaps in his own — which induced him to do 
in good faith and honesty, what he had never 
done before, and to wait about the Bank those 
two or three nights before he left the town.” 

“ Too plain !” returned the father. “ Too 
plain ! ” 

He shaded his face, and remained silent for 
some moments. Recovering himself, he said : 

“And now, how is he to be found ? How is he 
to be saved frotn justice ? In the few hours that 
I can possibly allow to elapse before I publish 
the truth, how is he to be found by us and 
only by us ? Ten thousand pounds could not 
effect it.” 

“ Sissy has effected it, father.” 

He raised his eyes to where she stood, like 
a good fairy in his house, and said in a tone 
of softened gratitude and grateful kindness, 
“ It is always you, my child.” 

“ We had our fears,” Sissy explained, glanc- 
ing at Louisa, “ before yesterday ; and when 
I saw you brought to the side of the litter 
last night, and heard what passed (being close 
to Rachael all the time), I went to him when 
no one saw, and said to him. ‘ Don’t look at 
me! See where your father is. Escape at 
once, for his sake and your own!’ He was 
in a tremble before I whispered to him, and 
he started and trembled more, and said, 

‘ Where can I go ? I have very little 
money, and I don’t know who will hide me !’ 
I thought of father’s old circus. I have not 
forgotten where Mr. Sleary goes at this time 
of year, and I read of him in a paper only 
the other day. I told him to hurry there, and 
tell his name, and ask Mr. Sleary to hide him 
till I came. ‘ I’ll get to him before the morn- 
ing,’ he said. And I saw him shrink away 
among the people.” 

“ Thank God !” exclaimed his father. “ He 
may be got abroad yet.” 

It was the more hopeful as the town to 
which Sissy had directed him was within 
three hours’ journey of Liverpool, whence 
he could be swiftly despatched to any 
part of the world. But caution being 
necessary in communicating with him — for 
there was a greater danger every moment of 
his being suspected now, and nobody could be 
sure at heart but that Mr. Bounderby him- 
self, in a bullying view of public zeal, might 
play a Roman part — it was consented that 
Sissy and Louisa should repair to the place 
in question, by a circuitous course, alone ; and 
that the unhappy father, setting forth at 
another time, and leaving the town by an 
opposite direction, should get round to the 
same bourne by another and wider route. It 
was further agreed that he should not present 
himself to Mr. Sleary, lest his intentions 
should be mistrusted, or the intelligence of 
his arrival should cause his son to take flight 
anew ; but that the communication should be 
left to Sissy aud Louisa to open, and that 
they should inform the cause of so much 


HARD TIMES. 


101 


misery and disgrace of his father’s being at 
hand and of the purpose for which they had 
come. When these arrangements had been 
well considered and were fully understood by 
all three, it was time to begin to carry them 
into execution. Early in the afternoon Mr. 
Gradgrind walked direct from his own house 
into the country, to be taken up on the line 
by which he was to travel ; and at night the 
remaining two set forth upon their dilferent 
■ course, encouraged by not seeing any face 
they knew. 

The two travelled all night, except when 
they were left for odd numbers of minutes at 
branch places up illimitable flights of steps 
or down wells — which was the only variety of 
those branches — and, early in the morning, 
were turned out on a swamp, a mile or two 
from the town they sought. From this dis- 
mal spot they were rescued by a savage old 
postillion, who happened to be up early, kicking 
a horse in a fly, and so were smuggled into jthe 
town by all the back lanes where tbe pigs 
lived ; which, although not a magnificent or 
even savory approach, was, as is usual in 
such cases, the legitimate highway. 

The first thing they saw on entering the 
town was the skeleton of Sleary’s Circus. 
The company had departed for another town 
more than twenty miles off, and had opened 
there last night. The connection between 
the two places was by a hilly turnpike-road, 
and the travelling on that road was very 
slow. Though they took but a hasty break- 
fast, and no rest (which it would have 
been in vain to seek under such anxious cir- 
cumstances), it was noon before they began to 
find the bills of Sleary’s Horseriding on barns 
and walls, and one o’clock when they stopped 
in the market-place. 

A Grand Morning Performance by the 
Riders commencing at that very hour, was in 
course of announcement by the bellman as they 
set their feet upon the stones of the street. 
Sissy recommended that, to avoid making in- 
quiries and attracting attention in the town, 
they should present themselves to pay at the 
door. If Mr. Sleary were taking the money, 
he would be sure to know her, and would 
proceed with discretion. If he were not, he 
would be sure to see them inside, and know- 
ing what he had done with the fugitive, would 
proceed with discretion still. 

Therefore they repaired with fluttering 
hearts, to the well-remembered booth. The 
flag with the inscription, Sleary’s Horse- 
riding, was there, and the Gothic niche was 
there, but Mr. Sleary was not there. Master 
Kidderminster, grown too maturely turfy to 
be received by the wildest credulity as Cupid 
any more, had yielded to the invincible. force 
of circumstances (and his beard), and in the 
capacity of a man who made himself gene- 
rally useful, presided on this occasion over 
the exchequer — having also a drum in reserve, 
on which to expend his leisure moments and 
superfluous forces. In the extreme sharpness 


of his look-out for base coin, Mr. Kidder- 
minster, as at present situated, never saw any- 
thing but money ; so Sissy passed him 
unrecognised, and they went in. 

The Emperor of Japan on a steady old 
white horse stencilled with black spots, was 
twirling five wash-hand basins at once, as it 
is the favorite recreation of that monarch to 
do. Sissy, though well acquainted with his 
Royal line, had no personal knowledge of the 
present Emperor, and his reign was peaceful. 
Miss Josephine Sleary in her celebrated 
graceful Equestrian Tyrolean Flower-Act, 
w r as then announced by a new clown (who 
humorously said Cauliflower Act), and Mr. 
Sleary appeared, leading her in. 

Mr. Sleary had only made one cut at the 
Clown with his long whip-lash, and the 
Clown had only said, “ If you do it again, I’ll 
throw the horse at you !” when Sissy was re- 
cognised both by father and daughter. But 
they got through the Act with great self- 
possession, and Mr. Sleary, saving for the 
first instant, conveyed no more expression 
into his locomotive eye than into his fixed one. 
The performance seemed a little long to Sissy 
and Louisa in their suspense, particularly 
when it stopped to afford the Clown an op- 
portunity 'of telling Mr. Sleary (who said 
“ Indeed, sir ?” to all his observations in the 
calmest way, and with his eye on the 
house) about two legs sitting on three legs 
looking at one leg, when in came four legs, 
and laid hold of one leg, and up got two legs, 
caught hold of three legs, and threw ’em at 
four legs, who ran away with one leg. For 
although an ingenious Allegory relating to a 
butcher, a three-legged stool, a dog, and a leg 
of mutton, this narrative consumed time and 
they were painfully anxious. At last, how- 
ever, little fair-haired Josephine made her 
curtsey amid great applause ; and the Clown, 
left alone in the ring, had just warmed himself, 
and said, “ Now F 11 have a turn !” when 
Sissy was touched on the shoulder and 
beckoned out. 

She took Louisa with her, and they were 
received by Mr. Sleary in a very little private 
apartment, with canvas sides, a grass floor, 
and a wooden ceiling all aslant, orl which the 
box company stamped their approbation as if 
they were coming through. “ Thethilia,” 
said Mr. Sleary, who had brandy and water 
at hand, “ it doth me good to thee you. You 
wath alwayth a favorite with uth, and you’ve 
done uth credith thinth the old timeth I’m 
thure. You mutht thee our people, my dear, 
afore we thpeak of bithnith, or they’ll break 
their hearth — ethpethially the women. 
Here’th Jothphine hath been and got mar- 
ried to E. W. B. Childerth, and thee hath 
got a boy, and though he’th only three yearth 
old, he stickth on to any pony you can bring 
againtht him. He’th named The Little 
Wonder Of Thcolathtic Equitation ; and if 
you don’t hear of that boy at Athley’th, you'H 
hear of him at Parith. And you recollect 


102 


HARD TIMES. 


Kidderminthter, that wath thought to be 
rather thweet upon yourthelf? Well. He’th 
married too. Married a widder. Old 
enough to be hith mother. Thee wath Tight- 
rope, thee wath, and now thee’th nothing— on 
accounth of fat. They’ve got two children, 
tho we’re thtrong in the Fairy bithnith and 
the Nurthery dodge. If you wath to thee 
our Children in the Wood, with their father 
and mother both a dyin’ on a horthe — their 
uncle a rethieving of ’em ath hith wardth, on 
a horthe, then the both a goin’ a Mack- 
berryin’ on a horthe — and the Robinth a 
coming in to cover ’em with leavth, upon a 
horthe — you’d thay that wath the completeth 
thing ath ever you thet your eyeth on ! 
And you remember Emma Gordon, my dear, 
ath wath a’motht a mother to you ? Of 
courthe you do ; I needn’t athk. Well. 
Emma, thee loth her huthband. He wath 
throw ’d a heavy back-fall olf an Elephant in a 
thort of Pagoda thing ath the Thultan of 
the Indieth, and he never got the better of it, 
and thee married a thecond time ; married a 
Cheethemonger ath fell in love with her from 
the front, and he’th a Overtheer and makin’ 
a fortun’ !” 

These various changes Mr. Sleary, very 
short of breath now, related with great 
heartiness, and with a wonderful kind of 
innocence, considering what a bleary and 
brandy-and-watery old veteran he w r as. 
Afterwards he brought in Josephine, and 
E. W. E. Childers (rather deeply-lined in the 
jaws by daylight) and The Little W onder of 
Scholastic Equitation, and, in a word, all the 
company. Amazing creatures they were in 
Louisa’s eyes, so white and pink of com- 
plexion, so scant of dress, and so demonstra- 
tive of leg 5 but it was very pleasant, fbr all 
that, to see them crowding about Sissy, and 
very natural in Sissy to be unable to refrain 
from tears. 

“ There ! Now Thethilia hath kitht all 
the children, and hugged all the women, and 
thaken handth all round with all the men, 
clear, every one of you, and ring in the band 
for the thecond part 1” said Sleary. 

As soon as they were gone, he continued in 
a, low tone, “ Now, Thethilia, I don’t athk 
to know any thecreth, but I thuppothe I may 
eonthider thith to be Mith Thquire.” 

“ This is his sister. Yes.” 

“ And t’other one’th daughter. That’h 
what I mean. Hope I thee you well, mith. 
And I hope the Thquire’th well ?” 

“ My father will be here soon,” said 
Louisa, anxious to bring him to the point. 
“ Is my brother safe?” 

• Thafe and thound !” he replied. “ I 
want you jutht to take a peep at the ring, 
mith, through here. Thethilia, you know 
the dodgeth ; find a thpy-liole for yourthelf.” 

They "each looked through a chink in the 
boards. 

“ That’th Jack the Giant Killer — a piethe 
of comic infant bithnith,” said Sleary. 


“ There’th a property-houthe, you thee, for 
Jack to hide in; there’th my Clown with a 
thauthepan-lid and a thpit for Jack’th ther- 
vant ; there’th little Jack himthelf in a 
thplendid thoot of armour ; there’th two 
comic black thervanth twithe ath big ath 
the houthe, to thtand by it and to bring it in 
and clear it ; and the Giant (a very expen- 
thive bathket one), he an’t on yet. Now, do 
you thee ’eem all ?” 

“ Yes,” they both said. 

“ Look at ’em again,” said Sleary, “ look at 
’em well. You thee ’em all? Very good. 
Now, mith he put a form for them to sit 
on ; “I have my opinionth, and the Thquire 
your father hath hith. I don’t want to 
know what your brother’th been up to ; ith 
better for me not to know. All I thay ith, 
the Thquire hath thtood by Thethilia, and 
I’ll thtand by the Thquire. Your brother 
ith one 0’ them black thervanth.” 

Louisa uttered an exclamation, partly of 
distress, partly of satisfaction. 

“ Ith a fact,” said Sleary, “ and even 
knowin that, you couldn’t put your finger on 
him. Let the Thquire come. I thall keep 
your brother here after the performanth. I 
thant undreth him, nor yet wath hith paint 
off. Let the Thquire come here after the 
performanth, or come here yourthelf after the 
performanth, and you thall find your brother, 
and have the whole plathe to talk to him in. 
Never mind the lookth of him ath long ath 
he’th well hid.” 

Louisa, with many thanks and with a 
lightened load, detained Mr. Sleary no longer 
then. She left her love for her brother, with 
her eyes full of tears, and she and Sissy went 
away until later in the afternoon. 

Mr. Gradgrind arrived within an hour 
afterwards. He too had encountered no one 
whom he knew, and was now sanguine, with 
Sleary’s assistance, of getting his disgraced 
son to Liverpool in the night. As neither of 
the three could be his companion without 
almost identifying him under any disguise, 
he prepared a letter to a correspondent whom 
he could trust, beseeching him to ship the 
bearer off at any cost, to North or South 
America, or any distant part of the world to 
which he could be the most speedily and 
privately dispatched. This done, they walked 
about, waiting for the Circus to be quite 
vacated : not only by the audience, but by 
the company and by the horses. After 
watching it a long time, they saw Mr. Sleary 
bring out a chair and sit down by the side- 
door, smoking, as if that were his signal that 
they might approach. 

“ Your thervant, Thquire,” was his cautious 
salutation as they passed in. “ If you want 
me you’ll find me here. You muthn’t mind 
your thou having a comic livery on.” 

They all three went in, and Mr. Grad- 
grind sat down, forlorn, on the Clown’s per- 
forming chair in the middle of the ring. On 
one of the back benches, remote in the sub- 


HARD TIMES. 


103 


dued light and the strangeness of the place, 
sat the villainous whelp, sulky to the last, 
whom he had the misery to call his son. 

In a preposterous coat, like a beadle’s, with 
cuffs and flaps exaggerated to an unspeakable 
extent, in an immense waistcoat, knee- 
breeches, buckled shoes, and a mad cocked 
hat, with nothing fitting him, and everything 
of coarse material, moth-eaten, and full of 
holes ; with seams in his black face, where 
fear and heat had started through the greasy 
composition daubed all over it, anything so 
grimly, detestably, ridiculously shameful as 
the whelp in his comic livery Mr. Gradgrind 
never could by any other means have believed 
in, weighable and measurable fact though 
it was. And one of his model children had 
come to this ! 

At first the whelp would not draw any 
nearer, but persisted in remaining up there 
by himself. Yielding at length, if any conces- 
sion so sullenly made can be called yielding, to 
the entreaties of Sissy — for Louisa he disowned 
altogether — he came down bench by bench 
until he stood in the sawdust, on the verge 
of the circle, as far as possible, within its 
limits, from where l^is father sat. 

“ How was this done ?” asked the father. 

“ How was what done ?” moodily answered 
the son. 

“ This robbery,” said the father, raising his 
voice upon the word. 

“ I forced the safe myself over night, and 
shut it up ajar before I went away. I had 
had the key that was found made long before. 
I dropped it that morning, that it might be 
supposed to have been used. I didn’t take 
the money all at once. I pretended to put 
my balance away every night, but I didn’t. 
Now you know all about it.” x 

“ If a thunderbolt had fallen on me,” said 
the father, “ it would have shocked me less 
than this.” 

« I don’t see why,” returned the son. “ So 
many people are employed in situations of 
trust ; so many people out of so many will 
be dishonest. I have heard you talk, a hun- 
dred times, of its being a law. How can I 
help laws ? You have comforted others with 
such things, father. Comfort yourself!” 

The father buried his face in his hands, 
and the son stood in his disgraceful grotesque- 
ness, biting straw. His hands, with the 
black partly worn away inside, looking like 
the hands of a monkey. The evening was 
fast closing in, and from time to time, he 
turned the whites of his eyes restlessly and 
impatiently towards his father. They were 
the only parts of his face that showed any 
life or expression : the pigment upon it was 
so thick. 

“You must be got to Liverpool, and sent 
on board.” 

“I suppose I must. I can’t be more 
miserable anywhere,” whimpered the whelp, 
“ than I have been here, ever since I can re- 
member. That’s one thing.” 


Mr. Gradgrind went to the door, and re- 
turned with Sleary, to whom he submitted 
the question — How to get this deplorable ob- 
ject away. 

“ Why, I’ve been thinking of it, Thquire. 
There’th not muth time to lothe, tho you 
muth thay yeth or no. Ith over twenty 
mileth to the rail. Thereth a coath in half 
an hour, that gothe to the rail, purpothe to 
cath the mail train. That train will take 
him right to Liverpool.” 

“ But look at him,” groaned Mr. Gradgrind. 
“ Will any coach — ” 

“ I don’t mean that he thould go in the 
comic livery,” said Sleary. “ Thay the word, 
and I’ll make a Jothkin of him out of the 
wardrobe in five minutes.” 

“ I don’t understand,” said Mr. Gradgrind. 

“A Jothkin — a Carter. Make up your 
mind quick, Thquire. There’ll be beer to 
feth. I’ve never met with nothing but beer 
ath’ll ever clean a comic blackamoor.” 

Mr. Gradgrind rapidly assented ; Mr. 
Sleary rapidly turned out from a box a smock 
frock, a felt hat, and other essentials ; the 
whelp rapidly changed clothes behind a screen 
of baize ; Mr. Sleary rapidly brought beer, 
and washed him white again. 

“ Now,” said Sleary, “ come along to the 
coath, and jump up behind ; I’ll go with you 
there, and they’ll thuppothe you one of my 
people. Thay farewell to your family, and 
tharp’th the word !” With which he delicately 
retired. 

“ Here is your letter,” said Mr. Gradgrind. 
“All necessary means will be provided for 
you. Atone by repentance and better conduct 
for this shocking act of dishonesty, and the 
dreadful consequences to which it has led. 
Give me your hand, my poor boy, and may 
God forgive you as I do !” 

The culprit was movjed to a few abject 
tears by these words, and their pathetic tone. 
But when Louisa opened her arms, he repulsed 
her afresh. 

“ Not you. No. I don’t want to have any- 
thing to say to you !” 

“ 0 Tom, Tom, do we end so, after all my 
love !” 

“ After all your love !” he returned, obdu- 
rately. “ Pretty love ! Leaving old Boun- 
derby to himself,' and packing my best friend 
Mr. Harthouse off, and going home just when 
I was in the greatest danger. Pretty love 
that ! Coming out with every word about 
our having gone to that place, when you saw 
the net was gathering round me. Pretty 
love that ! You have regularly given me up. 
You never cared for me.” 

“ Tharp’th the word !” said Sleary at the 
door. 

They all confusedly went out, Louisa crying 
to him that she forgave him his ingratitude, 
and loved him still, and that he would one 
day be sorry to have left her so, and glad to 
think of those her last words, far away ; when 
some one ran against them. Mr. Gradgrind 


104 


HARD TIMES. 


and Sissy, who were both before him while 
his sister yet clung to his shoulder, stopped 
and recoiled. 

For there was Bitzer, out of breath, his 
thin lips parted, his thin nostrils distended, 
his white eyelashes quivering, his colorless 
face more colorless than ever, as if he ran 
himself into a white heat, when other people 
ran themselves into a glow. There he stood, 
panting and heaving as if he had never 
stopped since the night, now long ago, when 
he had run them down before. 

“ I’m sorry to interfere with your plans,” 
said Bitzer, shaking his head, “ but I can’t 
allow myself to be done by horseriders. I 
must have young Mr. Tom ; he musn’t be got 
away by horseriders ; here he is in a smock 
frock, and I must have him 1” 

By the collar too, it seemed. For so he 
took possession of him. 

CHAPTER XXXVI. 

They went back into the booth, Sleary 
shutting the door to keep intruders out, and 
Bitzer, still holding the paralyzed culprit by 
the collar, stood in the Ring blinking at his 
old patron through the darkness of the 
twilight. 

11 Bitzer,” said Mr. Gradgrind, broken 
down, and miserably submissive to him, 
“ have you a heart ?” 

“The circulation, sir,” returned Bitzer, 
smiling at the oddity of the question, “ couldn’t 
be carried on without one. No man, sir, 
acquainted with the facts established by 
Harvey relating to the circulation of the 
blood, can doubt that I must have a heart.” 

“Is it accessible,” cried Mr. Gradgrind, 
“ to any compassionate influence?” 

“ It is accessible to Reason, sir,” returned 
the excellent young man. “ And to nothing 
else.” 

They stood looking at each other ; Mr. 
Gradgrind’s face as white as the pursuer’s. 

“What motive — even what motive in 
Reason — can you have for preventing the 
escape of this wretched youth,” said Mr. 
Gradgrind, “ and crushing his miserable 
father ? See his sister here. Pity us !” 

“ Sir,” returned Bitzer, in a very business- 
like and logical manner, “ since you ask me 
what motive I have in reason, for taking 
young Mr. Tom back to Coketown, it is only 
reasonable to let you know. I have sus- 
pected young Mr. Tom of this bank robbery 
from the first. I had had my eye upon him 
before that time, and I knew his ways. I 
have kept ray observations to myself, but I 
have made them, and I have got ample proofs 
against him now, besides his running away, 
and besides his own confession, whichJL was 
just in time to overhear. I had the pleasure 
of watching your house yesterday morning, 
and following you here. I am going to take 
young Mr. Tom back to Coketown, in order 
to deliver him over to Mr. Bounderby. Sir, 
I have no doubt whatever that Mr. Boun- 


derby will then promote me to young Mr. 
Tom’s situation. And I wish to have his 
situation, sir, for it will be a rise to me and 
will do me good.” 

“ If this is solely a question of self-interes* 
with you ” Mr. Gradgrind began. 

“ I beg your pardon for interrupting you, 
sir,” returned Bitzer ; “ but I am sure you 
know that the whole social system is a ques- 
tion of self-interest. What you must always 
appeal to, is a person’s self-interest. It's 
your only hold. We are so constituted. I was 
brought up in that catechism when I was 
young, sir, as you are aware.” 

“ What sum of money,” said Mr. Grad- 
grind, “ will you set against your expected 
promotion ?” 

“ Thank you, sir,” returned Bitzer, “ for 
hinting at the proposal ; but I will not set any 
sum against it. Knowing that your clear head 
would propose that alternative, I have gone 
over the calculations in my mind ; and I find 
that to compound a felony, even ou very high 
terms indeed, would not be as safe and 
good for me as my improved prospects in the 
Bank.” 

“Bitzer,” said Mr. Gradgrind, stretching 
out his hands as though he would have said, 
See how miserable I am ! “ Bitzer, I have but 
one chance left to soften you. You were many 
years at my school. If, in remembrance of 
the pains bestowed upon you, you can per- 
suade yourself in any degree to disregard 
your present interest and release my son, I 
entreat and pray you to give him the benefit 
of that remembrance.” 

“I really wonder, sir,” rejoined the old 
pupil in an argumentative manner, “ to find 
you taking a position so untenable. My 
schooling was paid for ; it was a bar- 
gain; and when I came away the bargain 
ended.” 

It was a fundamental principle of the Grad- 
grind philosophy, that everything was to be 
paid for. Nobody was ever on any account 
to give anybody anything, or render anybody 
help without return. Gratitude was to be 
abolished, and the virtues springing from it 
were not to be. The whole existence of man- 
kind, from birth to death, was to be a bargain 
across a counter. And if we didn’t get to 
Heaven that way it was not a politico- 
economical place, and we had no business 
there. 

“ I don’t deny,” added Bitzer, “ that my 
schooling was cheap. But that comes right. 
I was made in the cheapest market, and have 
to dispose of myself in the dearest.” 

He was a little troubled here, by Louisa and 
Sissy crying. 

“ Pray don’t do that,” said he, “ it’s of no 
use doing that : it only worries. You seem to 
think that I have some animosity against 
young Mr. Tom : whereas I have none at all. 
I am only going, on the reasonable grounds I 
have mentioned, to take him back to Coke- 
town. If he was to resist, I should set up the 


HAED TIMES. 


105 


cry of Stop Thief l But he won’t resist, you 
may depend upon it.” 

Mr. Sleary, who, with his mouth open and 
liis rolling eye as immovably jammed in his 
head as his fixed one, had listened to these 
doctrines with profound attention, here stepped 
forward. 

“ Thquire, you know perfectly well, and 
your daughter knowth perfectly well (better 
than you, becauthe I tiled it to her) that I 
didn’t know what your thon had done, and 
that I didn’t want to know — that I tiled it 
wath better not, though I only thought it 
wath thome thkylarking. However, thith 
young man having made it known to be a 
robbery of a bank, why, that’th a theriouth 
thing ; muth too theriouth a thing for me to 
compound, ath thith young man hath very 
properly called it ; consequently, Thquire, 
you muth’nt, quarrel with me if I take thith 
young man’th Side, and thay he’th right and 
there’th no help for it; But I tell you what 
I’ll do, Thquire ; I’ll drive your thon and 
thith young man over to the rail, and prevent 
expothure here. I can’t conthent to do more, 
but I’ll do that.” 

Fresh lamentations from Louisa, and 
deeper affliction on Mr. Gradgrind’s part 
followed this desertion of them by their last 
friend. But Sissy glanced at him with great 
attention ; nor did she in her own breast mis- 
understand him, for, as they were all going 
out again, he favored her with one slight roll 
of his movable eye, desiring her to linger 
behind. As he locked the door he said ex- 
citedly : 

“ The Thquire Stood by you, Thethilia, and 
I’ll Stand by the Thquire. More than that. 
Thith ith a prethiouth rathcal and belongth 
to that bluthtering Cove that my people 
nearly pitht out o’ winder. It’ll be a dark 
night ; I’ve got a horthe that’ll do anything 
but Speak ; I’ve got a pony that’ll go fifteen 
mile an hour with Childerth driving of him ; 
I’ve got a dog that’ll keep a man to one 
plathe four-and-twenty hourth. Get a word 
with the young Thquire. Tell him when he 
theeth our horthe begin to danth, not to be 
afraid of being Spilt, but to look out for a 
pony-gig coming up. Tell him when he theeth 
that gig clothe by, to jump down, and it’ll take 
him off at a rattling pathe. If my dog leth 
thith young man thtir a peg or foot, I give 
him leave to go. And if my horthe ever 
thtirth from that thpot where he beginth a 
danthing, till the morning— I don’t know him ! 
— Tharp ’th the word !” 

The word was so sharp that in ten minutes 
Mr. Childers, sauntering about the market 
place in a pair of slippers, had his cue, and 
Mr. Sleary’s equipage was ready. It was a 
fine sight, to behold the learned dog barking 
round it, and Mr. Sleary instructing him with 
his one practicable eye, that Bitzer was the 
object of his particular attentions. Soon after 
dark they all three got in and started ; the 
learned dog (a formidable creature) already 


pinning Bitzer with his eye, and sticking close 
to the wheel on his side, that he might be 
ready for him in the event of his showing the 
slightest disposition to alight. 

The three sat up at the inn all night in 
great suspense ; at eight o’clock in the morn- 
ing Mr. Sleary and the dog re-appeared : both 
in high spirits. 

“ All right, Thquire !” said Mr. Sleary, 
“ your thon may be aboard-a-thip by thith 
time. Childerth took him off, an hour and a 
half after we left latht night. The, horthe 
danthed the Polka till he wath dead beat 
(he would have walthed if he hadn’t been in 
harneth), and then I gave him the word and 
he went to thleep comfortable. Bitther thed 
he'd go for’ard and the dog hung on to hith 
neck-hankercher with all four legth ih the air 
and pulled him down and rolled him over. 
Tho he come back into the drag, and there he 
that ’till I got the better of the acthident 
and turned the horthe’th head, at kalfpatht 
thixtli thith morning.” 

Mr. Grad grind overwhelmed him with 
thanks, of course, and hinted as delicately as 
he could, at a handsome remuneration in 
money. 

“Well! I don’t want money mythelf, 
Thquire ; but Childerth ith a family man, and 
if you wath to like to offer him a five-pound 
note, it mightn’t be unactheptable. Likewithe 
if you wath to thtand a collar for the dog, or 
a thet of belltb for the horthe, I thould be 
very glad to take ’em. Brandy and water I 
alwayth take.” He had already called for a 
glass, and now called for another. “ If you 
wouldn’t think it going too far, Thquire, to 
make a little thpread for the company at 
about three and sixth ahead, not reckoning 
Luth, it would make ’em happy.” 

All these little tokens of his gratitude Mr. 
Gradgrind very willingly undertook to render. 
Though he thought them far too slight, he 
said, for such a service. 

“Very well, Thquire; then, if you’ll only give 
a Horthe-riding a bethpeak whenever you can, 
you’ll more than balanthe the account. Now, 
Thquire, if your daughter will excuthe me, 
I thould like one parting word with you.” 

Louisa and Sissy withdrew into an adjoin- 
ing room ; and Mr. Sleary, stirring and 
drinking his brandy and water as he stood, 
went on : 

“ Thquire, you don’t need to be told that 
dogth ith wonderful animalth.” 

“ Their instinct,” said Mr. Gradgrind, “ is 
surprising.” 

“ Whatever you call it — and I’m bletht if I 
know what to call it,” — said Sleary, “ it ith, 
no doubt athtonithing. The way in whith a 
dog’ll find you — the dithtanthe he’ll come l” 

“ His scent,” said Mr. gradgrind, “ being 
so fine.” 

“I’m bletht if I know what to call it,” 
repeated Sleary, shaking his head. “ But I 
have had dogth find me, Thquire, in a way that 
made me think whether that dog hadn’t gone 


106 


HARD TIMES. 


to another dog, and thed, 1 You don’t happen 
to know a perthon of the name of Thleary, 
do you ? Perthon of the name of Thleary, 
in the Horthe-Riding way — thtout man — 
game eye ?’ And whether that dog mightn’t 
have thed, ‘ Well, I can’t thay I know him 
mythelf, but I know a dog, that I think would 
be likely to be acquainted with him.’ And 
whether that dog mightn’t have thought it 
over, and thed, ‘ Thleary, Thleary ! 0 yeth, 
to be thure ! A friend of mine lived with 
him at one time. I can get you hith ad- 
dreth directly.’ In conthequenth of my 
being afore the public, and going about tho 
muth, you thee, there mutht be a number of 
dogth acquainted with me, Thquire, that I 
don’t know ! ” 

Mr. Grad grind seemed to be quite con- 
sounded by this speculation. 

“ Any way,” said Sleary, after putting his 
lips to his brandy and water, “ith fourteen 
month ago, Thquire, thinthe we wath at 
Chethter — and very good bithnith we wath 
a doing. We wath getting up our Children 
in the Wood one morning, when there cometh 
into our Ring, by the thtage door, a dog. He 
had travelled a long way, he wath in very 
bad condithon, he wath lame, and pretty well 
blind. He went round to our children, one 
after another, as if he wath a looking for a 
child he know’d, and then he come to me, and 
throwd himthelf up behind, and thtood on 
hith two fore-legth, weak ath he wath, and 
then he wagged hith tail and died. Thquire, 
that dog wath Merrylegth.” 

“ Sissy’s father’s dog !” 

“ Thethilia’th father’th old dog. Now, 
Thquire, I can take my oath, from my know- 
ledge of that dog, that that man wath dead — 
and buried — afore that dog came back to me. 
Joth’phine and Childerth and me talked it 
over a long time, whether I thould write or 
not. But we agreed, 1 No. There’th nothing 
comfortable to tell ; why unthettle her mind, 
and make her unhappy?’ Tho, whether her 
father detherted her, or whether he 'broke 
hith own heart alone, rather than pull her 
down along with him, never will be known, 
now, Thquire, till — not till we know how the 
dogth findth uth out.” 

“ She keeps the bottle that he sent her 
for, to this hour ; and she will believe in his 
affection to the last moment of her life,” said 
Mr. Grad grind. 

“ It theemth to prethent two thingth to a 
perthon, don’t it, Thquire ?” said Mr. Sleary, 
musing as he looked down into the depths of 
his brandy -and water : “ one, that there ith a 
love in the world, not all Thelf-interetht 
after all, but thomething very different ; 
t’other, that it hath a way of ith own of 
calculating or not calculating, whith thome- 
how or another ith at leatht ath hard to give 
a name to, ath the wayth of the dogth ith!” 

Mr. Grad grind looked out of window, and 
made no reply. Mr. Sleary emptied his glass 
and recalled the ladies. 


“ Thethilia my dear, kith me and good bye ! 
Mith Thquire, to thee you treating of her Uke 
a thithter, and a thithter that you trutht and 
honor with all your heart and more, ith a 
very pretty thight to me. I hope your 
brother may live to be better detherving of 
you, and a greater comfort to you. Thquire, 
tbake handth firtht and latht ! Don’t be croth 
with uth poor vagabondth. People mutht be 
amuthed. They can’t be al wayth a learning, 
nor yet they can’t be alwayth a working 5 
they an’t made for it. You mutht have uth, 
Thquire. Do the withe thing and the kind 
thing too, and make the betht of uth ; not the 
wortht !” 

“And I never thought before,” said Sir. 
Sleary, putting his head in at the door 
again to say it, “ that I wath tho muth of a 
Cackler !” 

. CHAPTER XXXVI. 

It is a dangerous thing to see anything in 
the sphere of a vain blusterer, before the 
vain blusterer sees it himself. Sir. Boun- 
derby felt that Mrs. Sparsit had audaciously 
anticipated him, and presumed to be wiser 
than he. Inappeasably indignant with her 
for her triumphant discovery of Sirs. Pegler, 
he turned this presumption on the part of a 
woman in her dependent position over and 
over in his mind, until it accumulated with 
turning like a great snowball. At last he 
made the discovery that to discharge this 
highly-connected female — to have it in his 
power to say, “ She was a woman of family, 
and wanted to stick to me, but I wouldn’t 
lave it, and got rid of her” — would be to 
get the utmost possible amount of crowning 
glory out of the connection, and at the same 
time to punish Sirs. Sparsit according to her 
deserts. 

Filled fuller than ever, with this great 
idea, Sir. Bounderby came in to lunch, and 
sat himself down in the dining-room of for- 
mer days, where his portrait was. Sirs. 
Sparsit sat by the fire, with her foot in her 
cotton stirrup, little thinking whither she was 
posting. 

Since the Pegler affair, this gentlewoman 
lad covered her pity for Sir. Bounderby with 
a veil of quiet melancholy and contrition. In 
virtue thereof, it had become her habit to as- 
sume a woful look, which woful look she now 
bestowed upon her patron. 

“What’s the matter with you, ma’am?” 
said Sir. Bounderby, in a very short rough 
way. 

“ Pray, sir,” returned Sirs. Sparsit, “ do 
not bite my nose off.” 

“ Bite your nose off, ma’am !” repeated 
Mr. Bounderby. “ Your nose !” meaning, as 
Sirs. Sparsit conceived, that it was too de- 
veloped a nose for the purpose. After which 
offensive implication he cut himself a crust 
of bread, and threw the knife down with a 
noise. 

Sirs. Sparsit took her foot out of her stir- 
rup, and said “ Mr. Bounderby, sir !” 


1 


HARD TIMES. 


107 


“Well, ma’am?” retorted Mr. Bounderby. 
“ Wliat are you staring at ?” 

“ May I ask, sir,” said Mrs. Sparsit, “ have 
you been ruffled this morning ?” 

“Yes, ma’am.” 

“ May I inquire, sir,” pursued the injured 
woman, “ whether / am the unfortunate cause 
of your having lost your temper ?” 

“ Now, I’ll tell you what, ma’am,” said 
Bounderby, “ I am not come here to be bul- 
lied. A female may be highly connected, but 
she can’t be permitted to bother and badger a 
man in my position, and I am not going to 
put up with it.” (Mr. Bounderby felt it ne- 
cessary to get on, foreseeing that if he allowed 
of details, he would be beaten.) 

Mrs. Sparsit first elevated, then knitted, 
her Coriolanian eyebrows ; gathered up her 
work into its proper basket ; and rose. 

“ Sir,” said she, majestically. “ It is appa- 
rent to me that I am in your way at present. 
I will retire to my own apartment.” 

“ Allow me to open the door, ma’am.” 

“ Thank you, sir ; I can do it for myself.” 

“ You had better allow me, ma’am,” said 
Bounderby, passing her, and getting his hand 
upon the lock, “because I can take the op- 
portunity of saying a word to you, before you 
go. Mrs. Sparsit, ma’am, I rather think you 
are cramped here, do you know ? It appears 
to me that under my humble roof there’s 
hardly opening enough for a lady of your ge- 
nius in other people’s affairs.” 

Mrs. Sparsit gave him a look of the darkest 
scorn, and said with great politeness, “ Really, 
sir?” 

“I have been thinking it over, you see, 
since the late affairs have happened, ma’am,” 
said Bounderby, “ and it appears to my poor 
judgment ” 

“Oh! Pray, sir,” Mrs. Sparsit interposed, 
with sprightly cheerfulness, “ don’t disparage 
your judgment. Everybody knows how uner- 
ring Mr. Bounderby’s judgment is. Every- 
body has had proofig of it. It must be the 
theme of general conversation. Disparage 
anything in yourself but your judgment, sir,” 
said Mrs. Sparsit, laughing. 

Mr. Bounderby, very red and uncomfortable, 
resumed : 

“It appears to me, ma’am, I say, that a 
different sort of establishment altogether, 
would bring out a lady of your powers. Such 
an establishment as your relation, Lady Scad- 
gers’ now. Don’t you think you might find 
some affairs there, ma’am, to interfere with ?” 

“ It never occurred to me, before, sir,” re- 
turned Mrs. Sparsit, in a light, social style of 
conversation, “ but now you mention it, I 
should think it highly probable.” 

“ Then suppose you try, ma’am,” said Bonn- 
derby, laying ah envelope with a cheque in 
it, in her little basket. “ You can take your 
own time, for going, ma’am, but perhaps in 
the meanwhile, it will be more agreeable to 
a lady of your powers of mind, to eat her 
meals by herself, and not to be intruded 


upon. I really ought to apologise to you — 
being only Josiah Bounderby of Coketown — 
for having stood in your light so long.” 

“Pray don’t name it, sir,” returned Mrs. 
Sparsit. “If that portrait could speak, sir, 
— but it has the advantage over the original 
of not possessing the power of committing 
itself and disgusting others, — it would 
testify that a long period has elapsed since 
I first habitually addressed it as the pic- 
ture of a Noodle. Nothing that a Noodle 
does, can awaken surprise or indignation ; 
the proceedings of a Noodle can only inspire 
contempt.” 

Thus saying, Mrs. Sparsit, with her Roman 
features like a medal, struck to commemorate 
her scorn of Mr. Bounderby, surveyed him 
fixedly from head to foot, swept disdainfully 
past him, and ascended the staircase. Mr. 
Bounderby closed the door, and stood before 
the ffle, projecting himself after his old ex- 
plosive manner into his portrait — and into 
futurity. 

Into how much of futurity ? He saw Mrs. 
Sparsit fighting out a daily fight at the points 
of all the weapons in the female armoury, 
with the grudging, smarting, peevish, tor- 
menting Lady Scadgers, still laid up in bed 
with her mysterious leg, and gobbling her in- 
sufficient income down by about the middle 
of every quarter, in a mean little airless 
lodging, a mere closet for one, a mere crib 
for two; but did he see more? Did he 
catch any glimpse of himself making a show 
of Bitzer to strangers as the rising young 
man, so devoted to his master’s great merits, 
who had now young Tom’s place, and had 
almost captured young Tom himself, in the 
times when by various rascals he was spirited 
away ? Did he see any faint reflection of his 
own image making a vain-glorious will, 
whereby five-and-twenty self-made men, past 
fifty years of age, each taking upon himself 
the name, Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, 
should for ever dine in Bounderby Hall, for 
ever lodge in Bounderby Buildings, for ever 
attend a Bounderby chapel, for ever go to 
sleep under a Bounderby chaplain, for ever 
be supported out of a Bounderby estate, and 
for ever nauseate all healthy stomachs with 
a vast amount of Bounderby balderdash and 
bluster ? Had he any prescience of that day, 
five years to come, when Josiah Bounderby 
of Coketown, was to die of a fit in the 
Coketown street, and this same precious 
will was to begin its long career of quibble, 
plunder, false pretences, meanness, little 
service and much care? Probably not. Yet 
the portrait was to see it all out. 

Here was Mr. Gradgrind on the same day, 
and in the same hour, sitting thoughtful in 
his own room. How much of futurity did 
he see ? Did he see himself, a white-haired, 
decrepid man, bending his hitherto inflexible 
theories to appointed circumstances ; making 
his facts and figures subservient to Faith, 


108 


HARD TIMES. 


Hope, and Charity —and no longer trying to 
grind that heavenly trio in his dusty little 
mills? Did he catch sight of himself there- 
fore much despised by his late political as- 
sociates ? Did he see them, in the era of its 
being quite settled that the national dustmen 
have only to do with one another, and owe 
no duty to an abstraction called a People, 
“ taunting the honorable gentleman” with this 
and with that, and with what not, five nights 
a-week, until the small hours of the morning ? 
Probably he had so much fore-knowledge, 
knowing his men. 

Here was Louisa on the night of the same 
day, watching the fire as in days of yore ; 
though with a gentler and a humbler face. 
How much of the future might arise before 
her vision ? Broadsides in the streets, signed 
with her father’s name, exonerating the late 
Stephen Blackpool, weaver, from misplaced 
suspicion, and publishing the guilt of his own 
unhappy son, with such extenuation as his 
years and temptation (he could not bring 
himself to add, his education) might beseech ; 
were of the Present. So, Stephen Black- 
pool’s tombstone, with her father’s record of 
his death, was almost of the Present, for she 
knew it was to be. These things she could 
plainly see. But how much of the Future ? 

A working woman, christened Rachael, 
after a long illness, once again appearing at 
the ringing of the factory bell, and passing to 
and fro at the set hours, among the Coke- 
town hands ; a woman of a pensive beauty, 
always dressed in black, but sweet-tempered 
and serene, and even cheerful ; a woman 
who, of all the people in the place, alone 
appeared to have compassion on a degraded, 
drunken wretch of her own sex, who was some- 
times seen in the town secretly begging of 
her, and crying to her; a woman working, 
ever working, but content to do it, and pre- 
ferring to do it as her natural lot, until she 
should be too old to labor any more ? Did 
Louisa see this ? Such a thing was to be. 


A lonely brother, many thousands of miles 
away, writing on paper blotted with tears, 
that her words had soon come true, and that 
all the treasures in the world would be 
cheaply bartered for a sight of her dear face ? 
At length, this brother coming nearer home, 
with hope of seeing her, and being delayed 
by illness; and then a letter in a strange 
hand, saying, he died in hospital, of fever, 
such a day, and died of penitence and love of 
you: his last word being your name? Did 
Louisa see these things? Such things were 
to be. 

Herself again a wife— a mother— lovingly 
watchful of her children, ever careful that 
they should have a childhood of the mind no 
less than a childhood of the body, as knowing 
it to be even a more beautiful thing, and any 
hoarded scrap of the former a blessing and 
happiness to the wisest ? Did Louisa see this ? 
Such a thing was never to be. 

But happy Sissy’s happy children loving 
her ; all children loving her ; she, grown 
learned in childish lore ; thinking no inno- 
cent and pretty fancy ever to be despised ; 
trying hard to know her humbler fellow- 
creatures, and to beautify their lives of ma- 
chinery and reality with those imaginative 
graces and delights, without which the heart 
of infancy will wither up, the sturdiest phy- 
sical manhood will be morally stark death, 
and the plainest national prosperity figures 
can show wdll be the Writing on the Wall ; 
she holding this course as part of no fantastic 
vow, or bond, or brotherhood, or sisterhood, 
or pledge, or covenant, or fancy dress or fancy 
fair ; but as a duty to be done — did Louisa 
see these things of herself? These things were 
to be! 

Dear reader! It rests with you and me, 
whether, in our two fields of action, similar 
things shall be or not. Let them be. We 
shall sit with lighter bosoms on the hearth, 
to see the ashes of our fires turn gray and 
cold. 

• 


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HOUSEHOLD WORDS, 

A JOURNAL CONDUCTED BY 

CHARLES DICKENS. 


This work among literary and scientific classes, lias indeed become k * familiar 
as household words, 0 while its charming versatility of style, and its unique 
method of presenting useful topics, have made it the favorite of homes and 
firesides far and near. Discriminating 'critics have pronounced it the best 
Magazine published, the press, universally, has bestowed upon it the most 
marked encomiums, and many of our best newspapers and miscellanies have 
drawn largely from its rich pages to render their own columns spicy and 
instructive. Book after book has been compiled from its varied contents, 
among which are “ A Child’s History of England,” “ Cranford Papers,” 
“ Lizzie Leigh,” “ The World Here and There,” u Home Narratives,” u Home 
and Social Philosophy,” u Pearl Pishing,” etc., etc. Although each of these 
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the entire publication, rather than any disjointed or mutilated selections. 

The regular staff of contributors to this Magazine is perhaps unequalled by 
that of any other work ever published. It embraces the most eminent men 
in various departments of art, science and literature — among whom may be 
mentioned Faraday, the renowned English chemist, William Howitt, 
Leigh Hunt and Barry Cornwall. 

The 6th, 7th and 8th volumes of Household Words will hereafter be sold 
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(8 vols.) for $12,00. 

Back numbers from the commencement of the Publication supplied to 
order. 


TEIB.MS. 

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MORE THAN 1200 OCTAVO PAGES. The EIGHTH VOLUME, NEATLY 
BOUND IN CLOTH NOW READY. 

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‘ I was always a friend of the White Man/' 


1 Vol. 12aio., CLOTH, ILLUSTRATED. PRICE, $1 £5. 

“ 4 The Master’s Jtor.se.' owe- its paternity to a distinguished literary gentleman of Louisiana, it \> -ssess.'? 
high degree of merit, as a series of sketches, and will undoubtedly command a large sale in +be vortli aiw 
south-west. Its pictures of society in the Slav eliolding Regions, are truthful and life like, of the peculiar in 
stitution. ‘the author deals something sparingly, but whenever lie touches it, he hits the raws Hut he sajj 
nothing more than is felt and said daily by slaveholders themselves, and as the writer belongs to the South lu 
will of course, have a large toleration granted to him. " — Courier. IsvisviUc , Ky. 

“ This is the fairest novel relating to Slavery that we have ever read." — Phi/adelphut Evening Bulletin. 9 

“ The scenes and characters are southern, the prominent acton — the white man. the responsible per oi 
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“ This book is fast becoming a very popular one." — Hartford Covravt. 

“The author is perfectly familiar with life in the South, and lias succeeded in forming a book that will d< 
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drawn conclusion is. that slave-traders. 4 I)ixon and such/ arc regular missionaries of the Gospel/ 1 — Bo-no 
Convnonweafth. " ^ 

T. L. HcELRATH & CO., 'Vp 

No. 17 SPRUCE STREET, New- York 


























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